Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SAINT MARY, HORNSEY BILL

Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Caribbean Schools and Libraries (Literature)

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what proposals he is considering for the circulation of literature and periodicals to secondary schools and public libraries in the Caribbean.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. Albert E. Oram): I would like to see more British literature available for this purpose, but I doubt whether any such proposals could be given higher priority than the purposes to which the £750,000 of aid now available for school development in the Caribbean is being applied.

Mr. Turton: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that since the discontinuance of the Caribbean service there is a great dearth of this material in Caribbean schools and that we have a responsibility to ensure that young people in the Caribbean have this material? Will he think again about it?

Mr. Oram: I will certainly examine the point the right hon. Gentleman has made. The normal provision of textbooks and periodicals is regarded as a recurrent cost which we expect to be met by the Governments there.

Mr. Lipton: Having returned from Jamaica a few days ago, may I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the need not only for literature and periodicals, but for the provision of a small film unit in each of the islands which could go out into the countryside and show films and film strips in villages? Such units would be greatly appreciated and would serve a very useful purpose.

Mr. Oram: I take note of my hon. Friend's researches.

Glendon Hospital, Montserrat

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister for Overseas Development whether he has now approved the plans for the improvement of the Glendon Hospital, Montserrat.

Mr. Oram: Following discussions with the Chief Minister and Administrator of Montserrat in London last month, it was agreed that sufficient development aid should be available to permit the construction of a new hospital in a single phase rather than in a number of phases as hitherto planned. My Ministry is accordingly engaging hospital consultants under technical assistance arrangements to advise the Montserrat Government and their architects on the design of a hospital on this basis.

Mr. Turton: Is the Minister aware that the vacillation and change of policy of his Department has created great disappointment in Montserrat, that this two-phase hospital was first approved in January, 1965, that it was included in the tripartite economic survey of Eastern Caribbean in 1966, that it was approved again in October, 1967, and that then suddenly it was turned down as a two-phase project in October, 1968? This vacillation does great harm to our image in the Caribbean?

Mr. Oram: I do not accept the word "vacillation". There have been differences of opinion as to the best way of proceeding in connection with this hospital. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the prime consideration now is that a new hospital which is architecturally and medically suited to the needs of Montserrat will be provided.

Mr. Marten: As my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said, this has been dragging on for a long time. When will it be started?

Mr. Oram: It is hoped that designs will have been completed, a contract awarded and work started by the end of this year or early 1970 at the latest.

Falkland Islands

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what proposals he has for assisting the economic development of the Falkland Islands.

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether he will make a substantial grant to the Falkland Islands to enable the islands to further develop local resources.

The Minister of Overseas Development (Mr. Reg Prentice): The current allocation under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act is £40,000 for each of the United Kingdom financial years 1968–69 and 1969–70. This is being spent mainly on the improvement of roads, Government housing and the telephone service. Technical assistance is also being provided mainly to help meet the costs of British expatriate staff. We have agreed to provide a team of five experts to undertake a study of the sheep and cattle industries and to assist with the completion of a new geological map of the islands.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In addition, is the expertise of the right hon. Gentleman's Department being used for survey work in the Falkland Islands Dependencies, which are believed to have considerable potentialities?

Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir; that is so. I should add that in relation to the population of the, islands, which is quite small, the aid I have described is on a fairly generous scale. I am sure that both sides of the House would wish to be aware of that.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Even so, would it not be better if far more aid were concentrated on people like the Falkland Islanders rather than on some of those countries which are so consistently ungrateful when they receive it?

Mr. Prentice: I do not agree that there are countries which are consistently ungrateful. That is a misapprehension on the hon. Gentleman's part. As I pointed out in my previous Answer, the aid per head in the Falkland Islands is very high compared with our efforts elsewhere.

Dr. Gray: If the Government accept the suggestion for a wealth tax, made by the T.U.C., will my right hon. Friend see that a portion of the proceeds is earmarked for development in the Falkland Islands and all other under-developed territories?

Mr. Prentice: The question of a wealth tax goes rather wide of my responsibilities, but I am always willing to consider the apportionment of extra taxes in the future to increase the overseas aid programme.

Botswana (Administrative Capital)

Mr. Judd: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what extra assistance he is giving to the Government of Botswana towards the cost of developing the new administrative capital at Gaberones and transferring all Government Departments from Mafeking.

Mr. Prentice: I understand that the transfer of Government Departments from Mafeking to Gaberones is almost complete.
British assistance towards the cost of developing the new capital has amounted to more than £3 million since 1962.
Further substantial assistance for housing and other purposes is under consideration from the 1969–70 allocation of British development aid to Botswana.

Mr. Judd: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that that does not by any means meet the full cost, and as, before independence, Bechuanaland was administered from Mafeking in South Africa, we had a special responsibility in this country for meeting the costs of building a new administrative capital?

Mr. Prentice: We have provided substantial help towards the development of Gaberones, but it was agreed originally that the proceeds of the sale of the old Imperial Reserve in Mafeking should go partially to offset the budgetary aid given in that connection.

Nigeria

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what assistance he is giving to all parts of Nigeria.

Mr. Hordern: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what is the level of aid and interest-free loans offered to the Federal Government of Nigeria by Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Prentice: The estimated expenditure on our aid programme to Nigeria during the current financial year is between £5 million and £6 million for capital aid and about £1·6 million for technical assistance.
Most of this programme is for projects in areas not affected by the war, but it includes some expenditure on urgent reconstruction such as the restoration of communications and the establishment of a child medical care unit at Enugu.
In addition to this aid programme, Her Majesty's Government have promised £970,000 for emergency relief in Nigeria to assist those affected by the war.

Mr. Dalyell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it was the opinion of the Animu Kano at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference that, besides medical supplies, it was important that basic educational supplies should be provided as soon as possible for schools which have been destroyed?

Mr. Prentice: Some of our technical assistance is in education. I gather that my hon. Friend is referring to schools in certain areas which have been damaged during the fighting. We have not had any request directed specifically to schools in those areas, but we should sympathetically consider any request of that kind.

Mr. Hordern: Will the right hon. Gentleman give a categorical assurance that none of this money is being used to buy arms from the United Kingdom to prosecute a genocidal war against Biafra?

Mr. Prentice: Absolutely none of this money is being used for the purchase of arms.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the grant of nearly £1 million to which he refers for the relief of war victims in

Nigeria will not result in any cut in overseas aid expenditure elsewhere in the world or in this part of West Africa?

Mr. Prentice: The sum of money concerned has come from within the total provided for overseas aid this year. It was possible to do this without making cuts because of some under-spending and some slower development projects both in Nigeria and elsewhere.

Mrs. Ewing: In calculating the amount of emergency aid which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, did he attempt to estimate the daily number who are dying and who will die unless the war is brought to an end? Was the sum based on such an estimate?

Mr. Prentice: It was ultimately based on that; it was based on the requests made by the International Red Cross, which is receiving money also from other countries officially and from voluntary contributions both from Britain and elsewhere. Clearly, those estimates are based on the actual needs of the people in the area concerned.

Mr. Dempsey: As Biafra is still an integral part of Nigeria, can my right hon. Friend say what proportion of this sum will be spent in that area which has been largely ravaged as a result of the dreadful civil war?

Mr. Prentice: I take it that my hon. Friend's question relates to the £970,000 for emergency relief. That money is being spent in Biafra and also to some extent in parts of the territory under Federal control which are part of the war zone. My original Answer gave total figures for aid to Nigeria, and most of that larger total is being spent in areas away from that part of the country where the fighting is going on.

Guyana

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what assistance he is giving to Guyana.

Mr. Oram: £2·4 million is available during the current financial year, mainly as loan. A further £3 million will be available in loans over the next two years towards sea defence works. We expect also to provide loan assistance for other projects, as well as continuing help for the university and technical assistance.

Mr. Dalyell: Can we do more to participate in the development of hydroelectric power?

Mr. Oram: As my original Answer indicated, it is likely that most of our aid in the next two years will be taken up in helping sea defence works. But we know of projects in connection with hydro-electricity, and we should not rule out help in this respect, subject to the priorities which have to be accorded to the other projects which I mentioned.

British Universities (Commonwealth Students)

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what proposals he has to increase the number of Commonwealth students entering British universities; to study for first degrees and other equivalent courses.

Mr. Oram: None, Sir. Most Commonwealth countries are now able to provide such courses in their own institutions. The policy of my Ministry is not to finance education and training in this country when suitable local facilities are available.

Mrs. Short: Does not my hon. Friend agree that some of the facilities available are not up to the standard of our own university courses, and would he not further agree that this is a valid way of helping under-developed countries to improve their own standard of life, instead of continuing the immoral policy of bringing their trained people here?

Mr. Oram: It is a question of how most economically to spend the finance which is available, and it is well established that the best way is to provide post-graduate training in this country and to assist with first degree courses in the countries concerned.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I accept what my hon. Friend has said, but will he none the less make representations to the Secretary of State for Education and Science to try to persuade the universities to interpret as liberally as possible the new regulations regarding fees to be charged to overseas students?

Mr. Oram: Perhaps my hon. Friend will put a Question down to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

Developing Countries (Repayment of Loans)

Mr. William Price: asked the Minister of Overseas Development how much money was repaid by developing countries to Great Britain during the last 12-month period for which figures are available.

Mr. Prentice: In 1967–68, repayments of aid loans from developing countries were £31·1 million and interest payments £28·3 million.

Mr. Price: Will the Minister arrange for the figures to be circulated among those who use foreign aid to stir up racial prejudice? Second, may we in future have a little more emphasis on loans and a little less emphasis on alleged gifts?

Mr. Prentice: The figures are given in statistics produced by my Department, but we have under consideration at the moment advice which we were given by the Select Committee on Estimates on the need to present the total picture more clearly. I expect to present a White Paper to the House on this matter and other recommendations of the Select Committee in a few weeks.

Tonga (Oil)

Dame Joan Vickers: asked the Minister of Overseas Development to what extent oil has been found in Tonga; and whether his Department will consider giving advice and aid with a view to its exploitation.

Mr. Prentice: Several minor seepages of oil have been observed in Tonga since last September. It remains to be seen whether oil is present in commercial quantities.
In response to a request from the Government of Tonga my Department has already advised them on their negotiations with the petroleum companies and on the enactment of the necessary legislation. We are helping to arrange further specialist advice.

Dame Joan Vickers: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. If oil is found in sufficient quantities, will he see that the local people are trained so that they have more employment? There is a great unemployment problem in the island at present.

Mr. Prentice: Talks took place recently within my Department between officials and representatives of the Government of Tonga on the kind of technical assistance they require at present for the immediate exploration of the deposits and for their future negotiations with the companies likely to do the work. We shall keep in touch with them as the situation develops.

Colonies and Dependencies (Aid)

Dame Joan Vickers: asked the Minister of Overseas Development how much aid each of the remaining 20 colonies and dependencies in the Commonwealth is receiving from Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Prentice: With permission, I will circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The estimated total of £14·3 million includes financial aid, technical assistance and investment by the Commonwealth Development Corporation.

Dame Joan Vickers: As these countries are particularly loyal to the idea of the Commonwealth, will the Minister see that in future they get their fair share of aid so that they can develop on lines similar to those of the countries that are already independent?

Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir. Provision for the remaining dependencies has been increasing. It was £9·6 million in 1966–67, £12·8 million in 1967–68, and £14·3 million in the current year.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Has my right hon. Friend taken note of the recent remarks of the Prime Minister of Singapore about ensuring that aid given to developing countries by Britain goes to the right places and is used for the right purposes?

Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir. I not merely took note of the remarks but heard the speech at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in which the remarks were made. They have been taken badly out of context in Press reports. The Prime Minister of Singapore was speaking of the need for greater self-reliance in developing countries, and I am sure that we would all agree with this. We take the greatest care to make sure that all aid provided by Britain is used for the purposes for which it is pro-

vided, and it is not true that any of our aid goes for the provision of luxuries for Ministers or for any other improper purpose.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that in the case of the large flourishing Colony of Hong Kong, it is investment that is called for and is likely to show quick results? The United Kingdom Government can do a great deal to encourage this, for example, by helping over the proposal to enlarge the runway of the airport?

Mr. Prentice: In all the developing countries there is a need for both private investment and aid on a Government-to-Government basis. The exact ratio varies from one country to another.

The information is as follows:


Economic Aid: Estimated expenditure in dependencies, 1968–69


Territory
£'000


Gibraltar
448


Rhodesia
40*


Seychelles
989


British Honduras
2,031


Bahamas
13


Bermuda
1


British Virgin Islands
505


Cayman Islands
146


Montserrat
272


St. Vincent
744


Turks & Caicos Islands
393


British Solomon Islands
3,095


Fiji (including Pitcairn)
2,065


Gilbert & Ellice Islands
506


New Hebrides
1,174


Tonga26;
332


Hong Kong
234


St. Helena (including Ascension and Tristan da Cunha)
354


Falkland Islands
53


Other†
921



14,316


NOTES


* Commonwealth Scholarships for students from Rhodesia.


† Includes £80,000 to the Banaban Community; £591,000 regional expenditure in the Caribbean; £250,000 for higher education which cannot be broken down by territory at present.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Unemployment

Mr. Marten: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he has taken in the last two months to provide the conditions for a reduction in unemployment.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond): The measures that my right hon. Friend announced on 22nd November will help to provide the conditions to which the hon. Gentleman refers by accelerating the improvement in the balance of payments.

Mr. Marten: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that for the past 20 months unemployment has been above the 500,000 mark, and that the export-led growth has had only a marginal effect on the level of unemployment? Does he propose any further steps to deal with unemployment?

Mr. Diamond: What I propose to do is to direct the hon. Gentleman's attention to the substantial fall in unemployment since August in particular. It has fallen by as much as 65,000 during that period.

Mr. Rankin: Would not it help to reduce unemployment in Aberdeen if we decided to pay airport porters there the same wages as are paid in Heathrow for handling the same type of luggage?

Mr. Diamond: That is a very interesting observation, but it is not directly related to the Question on the Order Paper.

Balance of Payments

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement of the balance of payments for the second half of 1968 and the first half of 1969.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Harold Lever): Figures for the balance of payments in the fourth quarter of 1968 will be published in mid-March. An estimate for the first three quarters was published on 12th December. I cannot add anything to my right hon. Friend's earlier forecasts for 1969.

Mr. Sheldon: In view of the very disappointing recent trade figures, does my hon. Friend agree that it is time we went for the greatest degree of certainty possible today? Will he re-examine the Treasury's obsessional fear of the use of import quotas?

Mr. Lever: No, Sir. The recent trade figures, far from being disappointing, are encouraging because of the underlying

improvements in our situation which are evidenced. I am not authoritative on any obsessional fears in the Treasury, and I do not propose any therapeutic action about them until I am more satisfied of their existence.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The Finance Secretary referred to the Chancellor's earlier forecast. Does he mean the White Paper forecast issued at the time of the Budget or any later observations?

Mr. Lever: I mean the aggregate of my right hon. Friend's forecasts.

United States Secretary of The Treasury

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has for a meeting with the United States Secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. Harold Lever: My right hon. Friend has no such plans as yet, but he is looking forward to early contact with the new United States Administration.

Mr. Sheldon: Whilst I understand that it is not possible to formulate very closely the kinds of discussion that can be undertaken, does not my hon. Friend consider that it will be necessary to take up the worldwide monetary problem at the earliest possible date? Can he give any indication of the sort of timing that might be possible in this connection?

Mr. Lever: I understand my hon. Friend's anxiety that the discussions should take place soon and be wide-ranging. I can assure him that my right hon. Friend will have such discussions as soon as it is convenient to do so, and that they will cover all the kind of topics that he has in mind and in which he is interested.

Sir G. Nabarro: Will the hon. Gentleman stress to the Chancellor that there can be no solution to problems of international illiquidity without a great increase in international trade, and that to seek that desirable end should be our first objective, coupled with a continuation of policies of Kennedy liberalisation of trade?

Mr. Lever: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend will certainly stress the priority of increasing international trade and continuing its


healthful development. But I do not think that illiquidity problems are solved by that. Such increases raise liquidity problems, which must be dealt with in order to enable the healthy development that the hon. Gentleman wants to see.

Estate Duty (Family Houses)

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will seek to exempt from estate duty the family house when it is left to the surviving widow or widower.

Mr. Diamond: I have noted the hon. Member's suggestion.

Mr. Baker: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that many estates today consist of a family house with a small amount of money, which incurs Estate Duty which it may be difficult for a widow to pay? Does he agree that it would be sensible to treat the family house for Estate Duty purposes in the same way as it is treated for Capital Gains Tax purposes, namely, by exempting it?

Mr. Diamond: The hon. Gentleman will know that there is a great distinction to be drawn between Capital Gains Tax and Estate Duty, but I listened carefully to what he said.

Mr. Ogden: Will my right hon. Friend inquire what the Opposition mean by a family house, because hon. Members opposite can mean something very different from what we mean on this side of the House.

Mr. Stratton Mills: In view of the inflation of house prices, will the right hon. Gentleman consider raising the exemption of the first £5,000 fixed many years ago to a more realistic figure to help smallish estates?

Mr. Diamond: On all these topics all I can say is that I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for letting me know what he has in mind.

Purchase Tax and Excise Duties

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will reduce Purchase Tax and Excise Duties by 10 per cent. on 1st January, 1970.

Mr. Diamond: I am afraid the hon. Member must wait and see.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will the right hon. Gentleman give serious consideration to the proposal? Is it not a fact that owing to the continual increases in taxation imposed by the present Government every new increase now merely encourages spending in anticipation of the next? Does not he think, therefore, that a promise of a reduction might lead to a reduction in consumer spending meanwhile, or does he simply think that it would not be believed?

Mr. Diamond: I will, of course, consider anything the hon. Gentleman puts to me. It must inevitably be the case that certain conclusions are drawn if taxes go up regularly, and that other conclusions will be drawn if they come down from time to time.

Public Expenditure

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the percentage increase in public sector expenditure in money terms during the current year.

Mr. Diamond: Figures in money terms are not yet available but as my right hon. Friend said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Fred Evans) on 2nd December, the latest estimate of public expenditure for the current year at 1968 Survey prices is £15,718 million, which is an increase of 4¾ per cent. as in Cmnd. 3515.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile the Chancellor's constant reiteration that public spending growth is on target with the enormous increase in local authority borrowing announced this morning? Is it not about time that the right of local authorities to borrow at an effective rate of 4½ per cent. for housing should be rescinded? What does Mr. Goode have to say about this?

Mr. Diamond: If the hon. Gentleman wants a serious answer to a question about local authority housing, perhaps he will be good enough to put one down. All matters of local authority expenditure were taken into account for the estimate I have just given.

Mr. Molloy: Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of the suggestions by hon. Members opposite for cutting public


expenditure would mean this country eating its seed corn, for which it would pay very clearly in future?

Mr. Diamond: I will bear that in mind. My hon. Friend will also recollect that most of the suggestions made by hon. Members opposite are for increases in public expenditure.

Mr. Higgins: Are the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman consistent with those in the Financial Statement?

Mr. Diamond: Completely consistent.

National Savings

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the net increase in National Savings in 1968; and what were the comparable figures in 1966, 1964 and 1962, respectively.

Mr. Harold Lever: Provisional figures show that the level of National Savings outstanding including accrued interest rose by £70 million in 1968. The corresponding figures for 1966, 1964 and 1962 were a fall of £30 million, and rises of £357 million and £238 million respectively.

Mr. Taylor: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the figures are disappointing in present circumstances? Can he give an assurance that soon there will be a new initiative to encourage National Savings—in particular, a "save-as-you-earn" scheme?

Mr. Lever: Naturally we have a special interest in the success of the National Savings Movement, but our paramount interest is in the total of savings, which has held up very well. I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance he asks for in the latter part of this supplementary Question.

Mr. Biffen: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total of National Savings, including accrued interest, for the year to date; and what percentage change this represents from the corresponding period for the preceding year.

Mr. Lever: £70 million net during the year to 31st December, 1968. This is about 46 per cent. less than the net receipts during 1967.

Mr. Biffen: As this covers a period when average incomes had been rising substantially—certainly faster than the guidelines indicated by the prices and incomes policy—to what reason does the right hon. Gentleman ascribe the reluctance of the British public to lend their money to the Government?

Mr. Lever: It is a gross distortion of the true position to say that an additional loan of £70 million this year by the British public to the National Savings Movement on top of the vast sums already there can be described as a reluctance to lend money to the Government. There is certain to be a flow between the National Savings Movement and other savings media. This is inevitable in our kind of society.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Since the figure is one-fifth of what it was in 1964, does it not reflect a reluctance?

Mr. Lever: No, Sir. It can equally be said that there has been an increasing desire on the part of the public to invest in other media which have been presented to them in a particularly attractive way. This is one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend is examining different methods of encouraging savings in different ways.

Wealth Tax

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration he has given to the report on the case for capital taxes, a copy of which has been sent to him, which recommended the introduction of a new wealth tax under the title of the gratuitous enrichment tax.

Mr. Diamond: I am aware of this pamphlet and consideration is of course given to its recommendations as to the many other proposals for tax reform which we receive, particularly at this time of year.

Mr. Baker: Would not the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to reject the proposals by the Fabian Society for a gratuitous enrichment tax, particularly as most taxpayers have been gratuitously improverished by the Government over the last four years? Will he attempt to reconcile the statement by the Prime Minister on television last night—that


savings should be encouraged—with the proposals which regularly come from the Labour Party for the introduction of another wealth tax which would be a penalty upon the results of savings?

Mr. Diamond: I confirm what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said last night and what my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has just said about our interest in savings. As for the gratuitous enrichment tax, as a Treasury Minister I am always interested in the Treasury being enriched, even gratuitously.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that, in this country and elsewhere, disparities between the very wealthy and the very poor are growing rather than narrowing? Is not some readjustment of property, by capital taxation or otherwise, necessary to redress that tendency?

Mr. Diamond: As my hon. Friend will recognise, my right hon. Friend's Budgets include an element of adjustment to take account of social needs.

Sterling (Exchange Rates)

Mr. Biffen: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make proposals for a more flexible system of exchange rates for sterling.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Roy Jenkins): No, Sir.

Mr. Biffen: Will the right hon. Gentleman at least bear in mind the substantial and increasing advocacy of a more flexible system of exchange rates for sterling and confirm that he has now a sympathy which at least is bordering on conviction?

Mr. Jenkins: I will confirm that I will bear in mind all considerations but I would add that I would need a great deal of convincing that we should abandon the basic stability in exchange rates which underlies the Bretton Woods system and which has worked very well for 20 years.

£ Sterling and United States Dollar (Exchange Rate)

Sir B. Rhys Williams: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what amounts the exchange rate between the £ sterling and the United States dollar

declined in each of the periods up to the present day since 1913, 1929, 1939 and 1947, expressed as an average annual movement at compound rates.

Mr. Harold Lever: On the basis of the parity—or for 1939, the fixed rate—at the end of each of the four years in question the average annual downward movement to the end of 1968 at compound rates was 1·28 per cent., 1·80 per cent., 1·77 per cent. and 2·44 per cent.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Are not these figures so small as to prove that, if we had had a flexible system of exchange rates for sterling during this period, the annual variations would have been so small as to be quite manageable?

Mr. Lever: The figures can be taken to prove anything hon. Members wish them to prove. Without these flexible rates, the world has prospered exceedingly, as my right hon. Friend has just said.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is it not better to have no decline in the £ at all as compared with the dollar? Could that not be achieved if these very large adverse visible trade balances were put on one side for a time? Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that we had the biggest adverse trade balance in 1968—as big as that of 1951?

Mr. Lever: Changing parities as between one country and another are, or should be, a function of the development of world trade. One cannot argue for the need for reasonable flexibility in these parities on the one hand and, on the other, urge that they should never change in a manner adverse to one particular country.

National Savings Committee (Chairman)

Mr. Barnett: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will appoint a new Chairman of the National Savings Committee.

Mr. Harold Lever: No, Sir.

Mr. Barnett: Bearing in mind that the present Chairman has made damaging and inaccurate comments, and since, presumably, that is not his task, would not my hon. Friend reconsider his reply?

Mr. Lever: No, Sir. Chairmen of savings committees are chosen for their general ability to further the interests of the National Savings Movement and not for their ability to make what would be to my hon. Friend satisfactory extemporaneous answers on television.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is it not the case that the present Chairman has rendered great service to the Government and the nation? Is he not of much more use in obtaining increases in savings than the sort of dumb stooge hon. Members opposite apparently want?

Mr. Lever: I will content myself by saying that the Chairman has given the Government excellent service as Chairman of the National Savings Movement.

National Insurance (Reserve) Fund

Sir B. Rhys Williams: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what provision was made in his budgeting plans for 1968–69 for the transfer of £200 million from the National Insurance (Reserve) Fund to the National Insurance Fund; and what steps he will take to offset the inflationary effects resulting from the disbursement of this money by the National Insurance Fund.

Mr. Diamond: None, Sir. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security, made clear to the House on 12th December last year, this transfer makes no difference to the amount of money to be paid out in benefits, and will have no inflationary effect.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Will not a number of competent observers, including the I.M.F., conclude that this is a way in which the Government have found it possible to increase expenditure without contravening the Chancellor's Budget statement that he was to limit capital drawings?

Mr. Diamond: No. The hon. Gentleman, if he will forgive my saying so, has completely misunderstood what has happened. It does not have any effect on public expenditure, it is merely like transferring money from one's deposit account to one's current account to put one's current account in funds.

Taxation Levels

Mr. Ridsdale: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what studies he has made with a view to bringing the direct and indirect levels of taxation in the United Kingdom into line with those of other industrial countries.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Although there are variations in the levels of individual taxes, the general levels of direct and indirect taxation in the United Kingdom are not out of line with those of other industrial countries.

Mr. Ridsdale: How are we to get the level of investment and savings that we need unless we reduce direct taxation and stop attacking capital? Is this not the example of other countries?

Mr. Jenkins: No, I do not think it necessarily is. It is important to achieve the objectives that the hon. Gentleman has in mind, but it by no means follows that the methods he advocates are the correct ones. The overall burden of taxation is higher in France and in Germany than in this country. The proportion of direct taxes appears to be somewhat higher in the United States and Japan.

Mr. Ogden: As my right hon. Friend is always being accused of attacking capital, would he at some time list in the OFFICIAL REPORT the amounts of subsidy, in one form or another, that this Government have given to private enterprise over the last four years?

Mr. Jenkins: The sums are very substantial. If my hon. Friend cares to put down a Question I will be glad to answer it.

Foreign Currency (Sale)

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) by what authority British investors overseas are not allowed to sell forward currency of the country in which their money is invested;

(2) by what authority British exporters are not allowed to sell forward currency of the importing country.

Mr. Harold Lever: There are no restrictions on sales by United Kingdom residents of currencies of the Scheduled


Territories. United Kingdom residents other than authorised dealers require permission under the Exchange Control Act 1947, to sell foreign currencies, other than to authorised dealers whose operations are conducted in accordance with directions under the same Act. Permission is in fact normally given to traders and others who show evidence that foreign currency receipts are due to them within a reasonable period.

Mr. Macmillan: Does this enable either an investor in a foreign country or an exporter who is owed money on credit in a foreign country to hedge against inflation by selling that currency forward, according to his judgment?

Mr. Lever: Yes, within a reasonable period, which is normally taken to be six months, he can do so. If he gives evidence that he is expecting a receipt either by way of exports or disinvestment, he can cover himself by selling forward.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Does this not demonstrate the great weakness, from the point of view of the liberty of the subject, which is inherent in the whole of our exchange control regulations? Would the Financial Secretary undertake to look at this, with the possibility of introducing new legislation which would make all the regulations and controls explicit, rather than that they should operate negatively, by way of a dispensation from a blanket prohibition?

Mr. Lever: If the hon. Gentleman will carefully read what I have said he will see that it proves the opposite, namely, that within the necessary restrictions the greatest flexibility is maintained so as to ensure that there is reasonable protection available to an individual, to cover his currency position.

Mr. Barnett: Would there not be even greater limitation on the liberty of the individual if we did not have exchange controls, and allowed limitations of growth, and the subsequent growth of unemployment?

Mr. Lever: Yes.

Scottish Banks (Consultation)

Mr. Eadie: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent he consults Scottish banks in matters involving Government financial policies.

Mr. Diamond: Close contact is maintained through the Bank of England with the Scottish banks on financial matters which may be of concern to banks in general and to Scottish banks in particular.

Mr. Eadie: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that there are strict limitations upon any consultations that can take place with the Scottish banks, because of agreements and amalgamations of banking interests on a United Kingdom basis?

Mr. Diamond: There are no restrictions, unless my hon. Friend is referring to the natural restriction of geographic distance. Consultations take place regularly.

Mrs. Ewing: Since neither shortage of labour nor inflationary pressures are prominent problems in Scotland, would the Minister not agree that directives to restrict finance should not be issued to Scottish banks?

Mr. Diamond: No. This is a matter which affects the United Kingdom economy as a whole.

Exchange Rates

Mr. Barnett: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give details of the discussions he has had about variation of exchange rates; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: The only such discussions have been in connection with the Bonn meeting of the Group of Ten, about which I reported to the House on 22nd and 25th November.

Mr. Barnett: Would my right hon. Friend agree that one of the major causes of uncertainty at present is that certain major currencies are out of line? While understanding his reluctance to have a new and large Bretton Woods type conference again, would he not consider the possibility of holding a meeting with a few of the major countries involved to discuss these very important matters?

Mr. Jenkins: We have had such a meeting, in November. I have certainly nothing to add beyond what I said when reporting on that meeting.

Income Tax (Dependent Relative Allowance)

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the cost of extending the allowance created by Section 17 of the Finance Act, 1960, to all persons who have resident with them a dependent relative over the age of 70 years or suffering from mental or physical infirmity.

Mr. Harold Lever: I am afraid that information on which to base an estimate is not available, but the amount would be comparatively small.

Dame Irene Ward: If the amount is comparatively small would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the cost of trying to keep these people on a reasonable standard of living is growing every day? If it is only a small sum, can we have an assurance that they will be given better treatment in the next Finance Bill?

Mr. Lever: I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Lady any assurances as to what will be in the next Finance Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' MEETING

Mr. Ian Lloyd: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the conclusions of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

Mr. Wall: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

Mr. Judd: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the policy agreed by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers toward Rhodesia.

Mr. Barnes: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on

the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

Mr. Whitaker: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission I will answer Questions Nos. 1, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14 at the end of Question Time.

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGERIA

Mr. Winnick: asked the Prime Minister what recent consultations he has had with the Nigerian Federal Premier; and if he will make a statement.

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Prime Minister whether, following the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, he will ask the leaders of Biafra and Nigeria to meet him in London.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs visited the Nigeria Head of State in December on my behalf, and I have recently been in consultation with Chief Awolowo, the leader of the Nigerian delegation to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Meeting.

Mr. Winnick: Will my right hon. Friend now tell the House about his own decision not to go personally to Nigeria a few weeks ago? Could he also, anticipating the statement that he is to make later, inform us about the hope of supplies reaching the more war-stricken areas in Nigeria?

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend will be aware, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, before Christmas, visited the Emperor of Ethiopia who was head of the O.A.U. mediation attempt, and there was discussion with him and the Nigerian Government. The hope of all of us was to get a Christmas cease-fire and mount a big relief operation. In the light of statements made, first by Colonel Ojukwu's representatives, and then following that, the response to that by the Nigerian representatives, it was decided that there


was very little hope of getting more than a very brief cease-fire. The House knows the outcome of that.

Sir Knox Cunningham: in view of the appalling loss of life and suffering that is going on in Nigeria, would it not be right to make a further attempt to get a meeting between the leaders of Biafra and Nigeria, in London or in any other place?

The Prime Minister: Every possible attempt has been made. The hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware, and I shall be dealing with this in my Answer to the Commonwealth Conference Questions, that every attempt was made to get representatives of Nigeria at the Commonwealth Conference and the representatives of Colonel Ojukwu then in London to meet. Unfortunately, there was no response to the willingness of the Nigerian delegation to meet. The Commonwealth Secretary-General has made attempts, the Emperor of Ethiopia has made attempts as I have said. Many others have tried to get the leaders together, so far without success.

Mr. Heath: Would the Prime Minister tell us what was the outcome, apart from the official Commonwealth Conference, of the informal talks which he and the other Prime Ministers had in Marlborough House? Has there been any opportunity for President Kaunda and President Nyerere to use their influence with Colonel Ojukwu in order to get a meeting?

The Prime Minister: I shall be dealing with that in my Answer to the Commonwealth Conference Questions later. There was a meeting between Chief Awolowo and President Nyerere and President Kaunda, the heads of the two countries which recognise Biafra, and also President Obote. No one was able to get the meeting in London that we were hoping for at that time.
On the question of relief, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick), the situation has deteriorated, I am afraid, since it was last raised in the House, because although we all agreed that the night flights were not enough but that daylight flights and the use of the land mercy corridor were essential, there has now been a stop on night flights as well.

Mr. James Griffiths: If the efforts which have been made to bring about a cease-fire are unsuccessful, and the war goes on to the bitter end, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that this is a war in which Africans are killing Africans with arms supplied from Europe to both sides, either openly by Governments or by a shameful black market financed and organised in Europe? Will he undertake, as the representative of our Government and our country, to seek an agreement with the other countries to bring about a complete ban on the supply of arms to both sides and to take collective action in the Council of Europe to stop their arms racket in Europe?

The Prime Minister: I was grateful to my right hon. Friend and to my noble Friend Lord Brockway for the very full personal account which they gave me of their visit both to Lagos and Colonel Ojukwu and the conclusions which they reached. What my right hon. Friend has said about the grimness of this struggle was abundantly supported by the evidence which they brought home.
On the question of arms, which was discussed in our recent talks in London, there appears to be no hope that there could be a stop on arms supplies even at inter-Governmental level, let alone the vicious black market to which my right hon. Friend has just referred.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: In view of the failure of the right hon. Gentleman's Government and of the Commonwealth to deal with this problem, will the Prime Minister visit the new President of the United States and ask him to make an honourable mediation in this dispute, which would also lead to an embargo on the supply of arms from all sources? We have failed. Surely it is time for someone else to take up the matter.

The Prime Minister: Everyone who has tried has failed. Most of those who have studied this problem regarded it, first, for Nigerians and, secondly, for Africans. The Emperor of Ethiopia, following the efforts of the President of Uganda, got the leaders together. The problem has been—and this is why there has been total failure so far—that one side refuses to contemplate a cease-fire unless the unity of Nigeria is accepted and the other side refuses unless the


secession of Biafra is accepted. In present circumstances, I know no mediation, although it is going on all the time, which would be successful in ending this tragic fight.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us who have studied the sad Nigerian tragedy at first hand and otherwise are deeply gratified by the efforts which the Government have made to bring the fighting to an end, to save life and to bring relief to the sufferers?

The Prime Minister: We have played our part, but, as I have said, the general recognition is that an African solution is needed. Whatever the differences of view among Commonwealth countries, there is no lack of desire to work to get a ceasefire and to help with relief. Perhaps I should make clear, as was made clear to me and other Commonwealth Prime Ministers at the Lancaster House meeting, that no conditions were set by the Nigerian representatives for their meeting with the representatives of Colonel Ojukwu.

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a further statement on Rhodesia.

Mr. Wall: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his further discussions with Mr. Smith's Government.

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Prime Minister whether, following the Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference, he is now prepared to meet Mr. Smith.

The Prime Minister: As I said in the House on 5th December in reply to the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) the "Fearless" proposals remain on the table.—[Vol. 774, c. 1830.]

Sir G. Nabarro: But is there no limit in time to these proposals lying quiescent on the table? We are now in the fourth month. Is it the Prime Minister's intention either to advance revised proposals or to withdraw the original proposals, or is he going to remain quiescent for ever?

The Prime Minister: No time has been set—and I made this clear at the Commonwealth Conference—for the period that the proposals will lie on the table. I was under strong pressure to withdraw them immediately. So far as the number of months is concerned, the House has had a full report from my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio about his talks with Mr. Smith. It is not for us to put forward revised proposals. Our proposals are there. They are clear. They can be picked up by anyone with authority in Rhodesia at any time.
One of the difficulties which we have had—and I do not want to make things worse by outlining the difficulties—is that whenever we have put forward proposals they have been rejected and we have not had alternative proposals put forward. For example, on the question of the second guarantee, we put four or five alternative proposals about which the House was informed. They were each rejected without an alternative being put in their place.

Mr. Wall: While congratulating the Prime Minister on maintaining his stand on the "Fearless" proposals at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, may I ask him whether he will confirm that he is prepared to consider an alternative to appeal to the Privy Council and, in particular, the suggestion recently put forward by Sir Albert Robinson, who was formerly the High Commissioner in London?

The Prime Minister: Concerning the Privy Council, as I told the House after the Gibraltar talks, we put several alternatives. They were all turned down without alternatives being put forward. My right hon. Friend put forward another proposal not all that dissimilar from Sir Albert Robinson's proposals. This was turned down by Mr. Smith and no suggestions, Sir Albert Robinson's or anyone else's, were put forward. It is for Mr. Smith and his colleagues either to accept the "Fearless" proposals or to say what they will accept. No responsibility lies on us to make any further move.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Will the Prime Minister take the same realistic view of the situation as does Dr. Banda of


Malawi? Will he now go all out for a settlement?

The Prime Minister: Dr. Banda supported the "Fearless" proposals and the line taken by Her Majesty's Government. If by going "all out for a settlement" the hon. and learned Gentleman means going beyond the "Fearless" proposals and selling out the six principles, the answer is "No".

Mr. Heath: The Commonwealth communiqué said that, when a settlement has been reached, it will have to be put to the people of Rhodesia in a way which carries conviction with outside countries. Was this a reaffirmation of the existing position, or was the Prime Minister proposing to make new proposals?

The Prime Minister: No. Everything that I said, and everything that my right hon. Friend said, was a clear reaffirmamation of the position which we have taken up in the House. There are no proposals. I was asked about a referendum in place of a Royal Commission. We gave our reasons for suggesting a Royal Commission as a means of testing, although we said that a Royal Commission would be free to report that fair conditions for a test did not exist, perhaps because of a banning of free expression of opinion, and, if it felt so minded, report that it had not been able to reach a solution and recommend some other way of finding one. But there has been no change from what has been said in the House.

Mr. Crawshaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the fears expressed by a majority of the Commonwealth countries about the "Fearless" proposals echo the thoughts of many hon. Members on this side of the House and that it is many times better not to make an agreement with people if one has to rely on trusting those people when their previous conduct does not entitle them to that trust?

The Prime Minister: I fully understand my hon. Friend's point. I have as much reason as anyone to understand what he is saying. Among the majority of Commonwealth countries which intervened in the Rhodesia debate, there were some very cogent and telling points

made against Her Majesty's Government in many cases. I did not hear from them any alternative, apart from an alternative suggested by certain members of the conference who thought that the matter should be settled by the use of armed force. I spent some time saying why we considered that wrong, impracticable and, indeed, dangerous.

Mr. Thorpe: Surely the Prime Minister would agree that the longer the proposals lie on the table without being taken up, the less likelihood there is that they will be accepted. Rather than this country suffering the humiliation of always appearing to be running after Mr. Smith to see what might please him, should not we indicate that they will lie on the table for weeks, not months?

The Prime Minister: There is no suggestion of running after Mr. Smith to see what might please him. One of the arguments which had to be used at the conference and which has been used in this House was that, while it might be tempting to say, "Let things drag on and on", there are considerable dangers affecting not only African employment but perhaps more dangerous developments there. Certainly there is a danger of a strong move towards apartheid. This is why we feel it right to leave the proposals on the table so that those presently in authority there or anyone who may wish to put pressure on them will have something to turn to as an alternative to what I believe to be the very dangerous developments which will happen if they are not taken up.

Mr. Michael Foot: My right hon. Friend says that the "Fearless" proposals are clear. Is it not the case that the overwhelming majority of members of the Commonwealth Conference dispute that and claim that the proposals do not contain any foreseeable date for majority rule in Rhodesia? My right hon. Friend also says that he did not hear any alternative expressed at the Commonwealth Conference. Is it not the case that the present policy being pursued by the Government is the one which many of them regard as the alternative but that they wish it to be pursued with greater determination and a refusal to come to terms with a man who has shown that his whole aim is to oppose majority rule in Rhodesia?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that there was any suggestion by my Commonwealth colleagues that the "Fearless" terms were not clear. That they were unacceptable may have been the case, and was the case with many of my colleagues. When I said that they did not present any alternative, I meant that some of them who a couple of years ago were saying that only force would do the trick and that sanctions were no good were now beginning to say that in their own experience sanctions were beginning to bite. But this did not deal with the problem of the drift to apartheid which I have mentioned, which may be one consequence of no settlement being reached, unemployment and the danger of a blood bath in that area. The other point they did not answer which I put was that if the people of Rhodesia as a whole accept the "Fearless" proposals, neither Her Majesty's Government nor any other Commonwealth Government would have the right to tell them what they should want—if they accept them after a fair test of opinion. That was the point we put forward, and that was very widely understood.

Mr. Gardner: Does not the introduction by the Smith régime into the so-called Rhodesian Parliament of legislation to extend the emergency powers, make it increasingly obvious that there is no point at all in talking to this régime?

The Prime Minister: I think that measure, which aggravated one of the points at issue in the discussion which my right hon. Friend had when he was refusing on our behalf to agree to a six-months power for the renewal of emergency legislation—they are now talking about 12 months—is one sign that Mr. Smith, who obviously took a great interest in this at one time, is again being pushed by some of his wild men. I hope that this will prove not to be the case.

COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' MEETING

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now answer Questions Nos. Q1, Q3, Q8, Q9, Q12, Q13 and Q14.
The conclusions of the Meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, which

took place from 7th to 15th January, are set out in the communiqué, copies of which have been placed in the Library. It will be published as a White Paper.
The House will perhaps expect me to say something about the background to the meeting, and about the main impressions anyone who attended it would be likely to derive.
This was the first Meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers since September, 1966. Twenty-eight independent Commonwealth countries attended, five new member countries took part for the first time and Tanzania, which was not present in September, 1966, played a full part in this year's conference. Of the 28 countries represented, 13 were African, five were from Asia, two from Australasia, five from the Western Hemisphere and three from Europe. Twenty-four of the 28 countries were represented by their Head of Government.
There were some commentators who were prepared to write off in advance not only the meeting, but the Commonwealth itself. The fact that so many Presidents and Prime Ministers were prepared to leave their pressing domestic affairs and preoccupations for a fortnight, to travel such long distances, and play so full a part in the meeting, is, and I am sure I am speaking here for the whole House, an answer to the pessimists.
Unlike the meeting of September, 1966, adequate time was devoted to all the main issues on the agenda. The time spent in formal session was fairly equally divided between four main subjects—a comprehensive review of the world situation, Rhodesia, a review of the world economic situation, and the development of specific measures of Commonwealth co-operation.
In addition, the session which approved the communiqué enabled Prime Ministers to supplement their previous discussions on these main issues. There was also, of course, the usual review of the Commonwealth's own domestic arrangements, including the Secretary-General's Report on the Secretariat affairs, and the work of the Commonwealth Foundation.
The debate on the world political situation, in which nearly every delegation took part, was of a kind no other forum would be likely to provide for a serious


and authoritative treatment of international problems. While some might have expected the very size of the conference to weaken the force and pointed-ness of the debate, the fact that contributions were made with such authority from every continent of the world, the fact that of the 28 delegations so many were represented at Head of Government level, the fact that it was so representative a gathering of so many races, in a multi-racial setting, with wide diversity of political approach on many basic world problems—all these facts strengthened rather than weakened the quality of the discussion and the importance of the occasion.
One difference I noticed from previous conferences was the greater emphasis on regional problems—Australasia, South-East and other parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, with particular reference to the Caribbean. For each Prime Minister it was as though he was given an angle on world affairs represented not by a world map centring on his own country, as we all instinctively tend to see it, but with each problem sharply highlighted from different geographical angles.
Similarly, the debate on the world economic situation, while dealing separately with problems of liquidity and the liberalisation of trade in the general sense, also to a considerable extent dealt with the problems associated with development—including commodity policy—and with aid.
The compelling need of the developing members of the Commonwealth for continued capital aid and technical assistance was eloquently expressed. The contributions being made by the developed countries, despite—for example in Britain's case—the balance of payments problems, was generously acknowledged. More than I have known in previous conferences, there were encouraging detailed suggestions about ways in which the developing countries could share with each other their expertise in dealing with the particular problems each had had, or was having, to face.
The discussion on Commonwealth cooperation was in part at least a development of the three sessions we had spent

on the world economic situation and it was here that we were able to review the network of personal, technical and professional relationships that give meaning to the subject under discussion.
The House will expect me to amplify the reference in the communiqué to Rhodesia. This debate was at a high-level, penetrating and impressive and the contributions to the debate were expressed with a great deal more moderation than in 1966. This was, I think, welcome to us all. While we were sharply divided on this question, and while—I would not wish the House to be under any misunderstanding about this—a very considerable majority of the Commonwealth opposed various aspects of British policy, there was a genuine awareness of the difficulty and complexity of the problem. There was no difference on the fundamental objective of majority rule. There were considerable differences about the way in which it should be brought about.
The House will be aware that a few delegations—and a smaller number than previously—continued to urge that the problem should be settled by the use of force. I explained why in the view of the British Government, who have the ultimate and final responsibility for settling Rhodesian questions, the resort to war was wrong, impracticable and indeed, as I argued, dangerous.
The conference was fully informed about the "Fearless" negotiations. My right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio reported on the discussions he held in Salisbury. I made it clear that the "Fearless" proposals would remain on the table, however negative the reaction so far received from Salisbury.
I also emphasised that, in accordance with the principles laid down by the British Government, the final decision which has to be taken must depend on the requirement laid down in the fifth principle, namely, that any settlement must be acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole. It was the main point of my argument that it is they who must have the last word, provided that we are all clear that they can express it in the right conditions. I made it clear that their future will not be decided except with their consent.
The House will wish to know about two other issues. Discussion of the problem of Commonwealth immigration, and the related question of Commonwealth citizenship, took place mainly outside the conference chamber. It did not go as far as Her Majesty's Government would have wished. The question of United Kingdom passport holders in East Africa—and it may be Central Africa—who have no close connection with this country inevitably proved difficult and delicate.
My right hon. Friends made the position clear in the terms in which the matter was discussed in this House last spring. We had to make it plain that our policy on equality of rights and opportunities for all who have settled amongst us, and for all who, under our laws make their homes in this country, would be frustrated if a balance were not preserved between the rate of entry for settlement and our absorptive capacity.
We intend to remain within the current ceiling for immigration for settlement, whether for Commonwealth citizens or for British passport holders who have no close connection with this country. I think that our Commonwealth colleagues recognise that to press too hard on this matter might involve us in having to limit immigration from other Commonwealth countries. We propose now to seek bilateral discussions with the Commonwealth countries most closely concerned. We shall, of course, also participate in the studies of the wider problems of Commonwealth migration which the Secretary General was asked to undertake.
The other question about which the House is so deeply concerned is the tragic situation in Nigeria. In accordance with the established conventions of Commonwealth meetings, and these conventions are right, there was no discussion of the Nigerian situation round the conference table. But it was the subject of very many bilateral and multilateral exchanges outside the conference chamber, in hotels, at Chequers, and at an informal gathering to which I invited my colleagues at Lancaster House.
The main concern of many Heads of Government was to mount a discussion between the official Nigerian delegation to the conference and the representatives

of Colonel Ojukwu who were in London last week. The head of the Nigerian delegation made plain to me, and to others privately, and to the gathering of 27 of us at Lancaster House last week, his willingness unconditionally to attend such a meeting with Colonel Ojukwu's representatives, if one were arranged under appropriate auspices.
Despite discussions by British representatives and those of other countries with the representatives concerned, I regret that there was no move in response from Colonel Ojukwu's representative in time for talks while Chief Awolowo was still here. Nigeria's Commonwealth partners, the vast majority of whom, but not all of whom, have declared themselves against the secessionist movement, stand ready to help in any way any of us can, individually, through wider groupings or through non-Commonwealth groupings, such as the Organisation of African Unity, which number many Commonwealth countries among their membership.
Mr. Speaker, I apologise for the length of this Answer, but this House traditionally has taken a great interest in Commonwealth conferences. May I conclude by saying that it was not within the power of this Meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers to solve the world's problems. It was within its power to examine those problems in terms of utter frankness, moderation and comradeship and to enhance—in a way that no other conceivable gathering could have done—the understanding of each of us of the problems of each other, and of the views of each other on every problem which we have to deal with in our domestic Governments and Parliaments, and in the wider international community.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: While the House doubtless will welcome the Prime Minister's anxious and considered optimism about an institution which many of us think has considerable development potential, is there not now a serious danger that it will develop into a forum or centre for inter-Governmental comparison, particularly in the spheres of political and civic morality? If uniform standards are applied to all members, can the Prime Minister say if it can survive such a test?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is expressing an anxiety which has


been expressed outside. I think that it is an unreal one. There was no suggestion of inter-Governmental comparison of morality or any attempt to get uniformity. The strength of this conference, much more than others that I have attended, was the very clear way in which individual Commonwealth countries are developing along their own lines and yet, despite that, from all these different angles of approach as well as geography, a much greater unity in the desire to discuss in a friendly way problems not only within the Commonwealth, but of the world itself.

Mr. Marten: In spite of the sickening anti-Commonwealth views expressed by some of our political commentators, will the Prime Minister confirm his view that the Commonwealth is very much a living entity? To give more life to that living entity, will he consider ways and means whereby British Parliamentarians can get greater contact with Commonwealth countries on the ground?

The Prime Minister: I join with the hon. Gentleman in his repudiation of the doctrine to which he has referred. There were anxieties after the last conference, because of its preoccupation with one issue, however important. From this conference the Commonwealth has emerged a great deal stronger than when we entered the conference. It also showed that many who had thought over the position had decided that, whatever its shortcomings and our respective shortcomings, there was nothing like the Commonwealth for this kind of get-together at this high level.
I was impressed by the repeated tributes paid by the representatives of old and new Commonwealth countries alike to the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. It is always remarkable on these occasions to see how many Heads of Commonwealth Governments wear their C.P.A. ties and their desire to see the C.P.A. do still more to bring Commonwealth Parliamentarians together.

Mr. Wall: While welcoming the communiqué, which demonstrates the value and importance of the Commonwealth, why were the Portuguese territories in Africa referred to? Might not this be thought to be encouraging the guerrillas

operating against South Africa and Rhodesia?

The Prime Minister: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman takes such a restrictive view. We also discussed China, disarmament, and many other matters, such as British Honduras, Indonesia and other countries not directly represented at the conference table. It is a fact that countries in that part of Africa are very much concerned with the dangers presented by those Portuguese colonies, or parts of metropolitan Portugal as they are technically called. The very question, mentioned by him, of infiltration and bloodshed which could spread over the wider part of Southern Africa, was very much in the minds of many who spoke at the conference.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: What reassurance was the Prime Minister able to give the Malaysian Prime Minister when he complained about Britain's lack of leadership in the security of South-East Asia?

The Prime Minister: The Malaysian Prime Minister was speaking for himself and his Government on that occasion in a very agreeable speech on behalf of all of us at Guildhall. A number of other Commonwealth Prime Ministers made it clear that they did not agree with his view, and it did not get support when it was repeated in a slightly different form during the conference. His idea of British leadership is perhaps rather an old-world one, in common with the long tradition between this country and that part of South-East Asia. His idea of British leadership would be to maintain forces there which we know that we cannot afford.

Mr. Judd: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his full report of what has obviously been a highly successful conference—and, for that, a great deal of gratitude must be due to him for his chairmanship—may I ask him two questions about Rhodesia? What alternatives to the external guarantees proposed on "Fearless" were discussed, and what action do Her Majesty's Government intend to take on the courageous proposals attributed to Seretse Khama about the possibility of a direct British presence in Rhodesia?

The Prime Minister: On my hon. Friend's first point, there was no real discussion of alternatives to the second


guarantee, though the meeting was informed briefly by my right hon. Friend of what had been said by us both in Gibraltar and during his own visit to Salisbury.
I agree that we heard a courageous and impressive speech by the President of Botswana. With regard to his suggestion about a period of direct rule in Rhodesia, there was no answer to my question about how we should get it, except from those Commonwealth countries which believe that it could be imposed by force, which we have rejected. This has its attractions for many surrounding countries in that part of Southern Africa, many of whom would like to see stability there, and no doubt many Rhodesians would prefer to have stability on a constitutional basis for a further period rather than a fictional independence. But it is not realistic to talk about imposing a period of direct rule in the form that was mentioned by some of my colleagues at the conference.

Mr. Barnes: As regards the informal talks about Nigeria, would my right hon. friend not agree that any effort to bring the two sides together to talk to each other depends very much on the basis on which it is done? Could he say to what extent Her Majesty's Government are now actively trying to promote a compromise solution?

The Prime Minister: Not only Her Majesty's Government but the Secretary-General here in London, during the past fortnight, and also we and he and many others, have been trying to promote this at various times up to and since Christmas. One variant was to try to get an unconditional cease-fire, so that relief could begin to flow, and start discussing a compromise solution. So far, both sides refuse categorically to meet except on the basis of an acceptance by the other side of its own terms. That is why it is extremely difficult to hope immediately for an unconditional cease-fire, just as it is difficult to hope for an agreement on the conditions of an ultimate settlement. Both have been tried. The tragedy is not only that the fighting is going on, but that these attitudes prevent the movement of relief supplies, especially food, which are there in abundant quantity, provided from this country and many others, with transport available, and which are not being moved.

Mr. Whitaker: Now that the Common-welath Conference and the O.A.U., unfortunately, have made no progress towards peace in Nigeria, could not action be taken, perhaps through the United Nations, towards a complete arms embargo on both sides, instead of more fuel being added to this unhappy fire?

The Prime Minister: There have been informal soundings at the United Nations, and my hon. Friend will be aware of what U Thant has said about this matter, which he regards, quite rightly, as a Nigerian matter. Although there has been failure so far—and my hon. Friend referred to the O.A.U.—we are satisfied from our contact with the O.A.U. leadership and with individual O.A.U. members that an attempt is going on all the time to get the parties to the conference table and, as a separate operation, to get relief supplies flowing. Despite the willingness of the United States, Canada and ourselves and many others at the United Nations, I do not think that we should move more hopefully towards peace if we started centralising mediation efforts in yet another area.

Mr. Heath: May I express agreement with the Prime Minister on what he has said about the value of the conference. A considerable number of Prime Ministers attended the conference for the first time. I have had informal talks with them, but even those who came with doubts and a most sceptical frame of mind were convinced of the value of the conference in a Commonwealth connection.
I ask the Prime Minister two questions. First, disarmament. Was there any discussion about the positions of various Commonwealth countries on the non-proliferation agreement, and, in particular, the position of India?
Secondly, on immigration, there are two aspects. First, immigration of other Commonwealth citizens into Britain, on which there must be severe limitation, and, secondly, the problem of British citizens in other Commonwealth countries being limited. Why were there no bilateral talks about British citizens, particularly in East Africa, while the conference was going on? Is it not essential that these talks should take place with urgency and should not be left to the


general exploration of the Secretary-General?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. First, may I say how much I agree with the right hon. Gentleman's own judgment on the attitude especially of new Commonwealth Prime Ministers, whether from new Commonwealth countries or new representatives of old countries, to the conference. It accords with what has been said to me by many hon. Members in all parts of the House.
Secondly, non-proliferation. There was some discussion not only round the conference table, but also in a series of informal groupings and gatherings. The position of India is well known from the attitude that has been taken by India at the 18-nation Disarmament Committee at Geneva. Apart from short bilateral discussions, nothing was said by India to suggest that there has been any change in that attitude. Other countries have indicated their attitude. There was general support for what has been achieved, but equally a generally expressed sense of urgency by the non-nuclear countries about the need for further disarmament by nuclear Powers. However, certain countries indicated great difficulty about signing and ratifying the non-proliferation treaty. In those circumstances, it was not possible to make progress.
On immigration, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about the treatment of British citizens in certain countries, quite apart from the question of the entry of Commonwealth citizens or British passport holders into this country. There was some discussion, particularly informal bilateral discussion, for example, at Chequers on some of these points.
But the group meeting that was mounted for the purpose of discussing all these matters made little progress, unfortunately, partly, I think, because of the strong suspicions and feelings of certain of the East African countries about the kind of pressure that they felt we were all going to put on them—not only ourselves, but also Pakistan and such countries as the Caribbean countries who were anxious that their quotas should not be cut to accommodate more people who were expelled.
While we disagree with the East African countries in their policies, many of them felt that we misrepresented their point of view by saying that they were trying to expel Asians when all they were doing was to take away their trading permits and to encourage them to take up other work and still remain.
The Secretary-General is instructed to prepare studies, but we believe that the main emphasis, as the right hon. Gentleman says, must be on urgent bilateral talks with the countries concerned.

Mr. Heffer: My right hon. Friend says that joint efforts are being made for a compromise solution to the Nigerian-Biafran conflict. Does he agree that the transport of Nigerian Federal troops in British merchant ships is not conducive towards such a compromise? Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have written to the Foreign Secretary giving him chapter and verse of the use of such ships? Will he give an assurance to the House that, irrespective of any arms embargo at this stage, such a practice will cease?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend will no doubt study the information supplied by my hon. Friend and I shall be glad to see it. On that issue, particularly on the arms issue, in all the discussions that I heard and took part in and all the informal discussions on Nigeria during the conference, I heard no argument put forward that if our arms policy were different there would be a likelihood of shortening the fighting by a single day. If I had heard that I would feel it my duty to report it to the House. But those in closest touch with the situation, including the two countries which have recognised Biafra, have made no attempt to support that thesis for a moment.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the Prime Minister aware that no one reading the communiqué and the range of subjects covered would fail to be impressed by the Commonwealth as a forum for discussion and understanding? Is he also aware that particularly welcome are the proposals in the last 13 paragraphs for increased Commonwealth co-operation at different levels?
I ask one question concerning immigration. Although the Prime Minister has said that there will be bilateral talks


and multilateral studies by officials under Mr. Arnold Smith, is this not essentially a multilateral political question in which there should be continuing talks between the Ministers of all the countries affected? Will the Prime Minister consider that and say whether any Commonwealth countries have declined to participate in any such meeting?

The Prime Minister: On the communiqué, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and thank him for what he has said. A great deal of ground was covered. That is why it is an unusually lengthy and informative communiqué, even where there were differences on the recognition of China and matters of that kind.
It would have been ideal if we could have had a gathering with all the countries concerned to try to hammer out an agreement on immigration, but it rapidly became clear that that was not in prospect. In these circumstances, we feel that bilateral discussions are the most likely to prove productive, though I do not underrate the problems presented. The Secretary-General's function is ancillary to what will be the main bilateral discussion.

Mr. Ogden: Can the Prime Minister tell us a little more about discussions, either formal or informal, for an increase in Commonwealth trade? Can he give an assurance that those discussions will be followed by bilateral discussions at different levels between this Government and individual Governments?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. There have been continuously, and we have convened special meetings of Commonwealth Trade Ministers as well as the annual meeting of Commonwealth Finance Ministers. My hon. Friend will find in the communiqué in the section on economic affairs and on Commonwealth co-operation what is being done to stimulate intra-Commonwealth trade as well as measures of Commonwealth association.
I am sorry that I did not answer the right hon. Gentleman's question earlier about a special conference of Ministers. In view of the difficulty that we had in getting Ministers round the table on this question, I would not hold out a lot of hope of getting a conference of this kind now that the Ministers have gone home. I think that the bilateral approach will have to be tried in the first instance. If that were productive, we might have a Ministerial conference.

Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles: Was the Prime Minister able to convince the Prime Minister of Singapore about the effectiveness of continued British interest in South-East Asia after the withdrawal of all armed forces east of Suez?

The Prime Minister: I think that the Prime Minister of Singapore has acted with remarkable speed and resilience upon the decision which we announced a year ago. He is much more relaxed about the situation than when he came to Britain in January last year. He is now taking the most energetic measures to secure boom conditions for Singapore by his own and his people's efforts and our help, including our substantial aid programme, which he values, and also the recent Commonwealth Trade Mission.
If there is any issue on which he has expressed anxiety here publicly, as well as privately, it is not our defence policy, which he takes as given and settled, but his disappointment that more of our industrialists are not moving in quickly to take advantage of what he regards as likely to prove the great development and growth centre of South-East Asia. Some of our industrialists, under the Grierson Mission, have made a start, but he is disappointed that more is not being done in investment and trade.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Concerning the difficult problem of emigration within the Commonwealth, which was discussed at the meeting, does the Prime Minister agree that the problem of British citizens in East Africa is distinct and different from the more general problem of immigration within the Commonwealth? If we are to solve these two problems, will my right hon. Friend bear this in mind in bilateral discussions taking place in future?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That distinction was one reason why it was difficult to get any common view even in the meeting that was arranged, because countries from which there is at present a small degree of normal immigration, not of British passport holders, were very much alarmed that if we opened our doors to any extent to let in British passport holders from East African countries, or from Zambia if that becomes an issue, there would be a still smaller number coming in from the more traditional Commonwealth immigrant


countries, and that it might mean interference with what exists today, under fairly strict controls, for the uniting of families. This is why there was a clash between countries from whom immigrants come; there was a sharp division between those two groups quite apart from Britain's own position.

Mr. Fisher: In addition to the bilateral talks on Commonwealth immigration, which we all greatly welcome, I was not clear whether the machinery to be set up within the Commonwealth Secretariat for the study of the problem is to be permanent, for studying all aspects of Commonwealth migration and issuing information to other Governments concerned, or whether it is to be only a temporary thing dealing with the particular problem of Kenya Asians.

The Prime Minister: "Permanent" is a word which covers a very long time, but as far ahead as we can see the Secretary-General will be asked to undertake the task which we have given him—I would say certainly up to the next conference, when the matter can be reviewed. His job is more to get facts and to try to measure—if one can use this phrase—the "tidal flow" of migration, so that countries can get advance notice of the kind of problem with which they might be confronted, and so that individual displaced persons are not left, as it were, without a home.
This would also enable some of us to put pressure on countries not to expel or force out. Of course, if this worked, together with bilateral discussions, it would lead us to better machinery, perhaps inter-Governmental machinery, and that kind of work might give way to something new which might be laid on the Secretary-General at a later conference.

Mr. James Johnson: Referring to Nigeria, since my right hon. Friend or the British Government are in such disfavour, apparently, with the Ibo or Biafran leadership, what use are we making of Tanzania or Zambia, which are in favour? Is there any chance of success in using them as mediators?

The Prime Minister: This was raised in the discussion which I mentioned at, I think, President Nyerere's hotel between

the Presidents of Zambia, Uganda and Tanzania and the leaders of the Nigerian delegation. I think—I do not want to put it higher than this—that our friends, particularly from Tanzania and Zambia, but also President Obote, who played a distinguished part in getting the parties together at the very outset at Kampala, will consider what more they can do, but in view of the utterly intransigent position at present, it is doubtful whether they would be successful in persuading those concerned to come to the conference table.
As has been made clear by many of those with influence with Colonel Ojukwu, he refuses to contemplate either a cease-fire or discussions on any basis other than that which involves in advance acceptance of what he calls his "nationhood".

Mrs. Ewing: May I agree with the Prime Minister on the excellence of the forum provided by the conference? May I, without disrespect to him, express the hope that, after his Commission on the Constitution has deliberated, or the next election, whichever event is first, the Prime Minister of Scotland will be able to attend? Did the conference discuss the criteria on which new nations are admitted to the Commonwealth? If so, what were those criteria?

The Prime Minister: As the hon. Lady will know, the Commonwealth rules provide that all new countries seeking to join the Commonwealth must be accepted by all members and have to show to the Commonwealth, of course, that they have effective control of the country which they represent. The hon. Lady will have noted, for example, the leading part played at the conference by my right hon. Friend, who is a Scot and represents a Scottish constituency and who, in that conference, was able to speak in a Scottish accent for 50 million people.
The other general view of the Commonwealth Conference which I think I should draw to her attention—this came up not only in Nigeria, but in general discussions of the world situation—was the general Commonwealth opposition to Balkanisation.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is an important subject, but we must move on.

BILLS PRESENTED

PENSIONS (INCREASE)

Bill to provide for increases or supplements in respect of certain pensions, presented by the Prime Minister; supported by Mr. William Ross, Mr. Anthony Greenwood, Mrs. Judith Hart, Mr. Reginald Prentice, and Mr. Harold Lever, read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 66.]

REDUNDANT CHURCHES AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS

Bill to authorise the making of grants to the Redundant Churches Fund; to exclude section 40 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1968 in relation to the demolition, in certain cases, of redundant places of public worship; to provide for, and make provision in connection with, the transfer to the Minister of Housing and Local Government or the Secretary of State of certain such places; and to make other provision relating to the acquisition and maintenance by that Minister and the Secretary of State of redundant churches and other religious buildings, presented by Mr. Anthony Greenwood; supported by Mr. George Thomas, Mr. Kenneth Robinson, Mr. Robert Mellish, Mr. Dick Taverne, Mr. James MacColl, and Mr. Arthur Skeffington; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 64.]

REDUNDANCY REBATES

Bill to reduce the rebates payable under section 30 of the Redundancy Payments Act 1965, presented by Mrs. Barbara Castle; supported by Mr. Richard Cross-man, Mr. Anthony Crosland, Mr. William Ross, and Mr. John Diamond; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 65.]

DECIMAL CURRENCY

Bill to make further provision in connection with the introduction of a decimal currency, and to impose restrictions on the melting or breaking of metal coins, presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; supported by Mr. John Diamond, Mr. Harold Lever, and Mr. Dick Taverne; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 67.]

TATTOOING OF MINORS

4.6 p.m.

Mr. Martin Maddan: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the tattooing of persons under the age of eighteen years.
In another place, two years ago, in a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Royle, Lord Ailwyn described an admiral under whom he had served who, on his back, had a full hunting scene, with riders and hounds pursuing, in a north to south direction, the fox, which was going to earth. It was, I think, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford to whom the noble Lord referred—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is asking leave to introduce a Bill and we want to hear about the Bill.

Mr. Maddan: That story is water under the bridge now, Mr. Speaker, and I will not repeat it. But it was just 100 years ago that Admiral Lord Charles Beresford acquired his edition of this famous hunt scene, which today would cost about £10 to acquire in full, covering the whole back from shoulders to cleft of buttocks.
The modern Royal Navy discourages tattooing, and I therefore particularly welcome the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles). I want to quote from a propaganda broadsheet issued by the Navy, which says:
All too often in the Navy it"—
that is, tattooing—
springs from the urge of immature minds to copy the older men around, requiring only the stimulus of a few half pints to get the young sailors into the tattoo shop.
There was a survey in Portsmouth of 2,000 male ratings, which showed that 46 per cent. were tattooed and that, of those, two-thirds were tattooed before they were 18. It showed that, by the time they were interviewed, 50 per cent. regretted having been tattooed, and this proportion rose to 70 per cent. among married men. I should think that the proportion would be higher by the time the men left the Navy.
But the problem outside the Navy is more serious, since 40 per cent. of those


in borstals and detention centres are tattooed. Tattooing is prevalent among the young and those of low I.Q. and those in local gangs. There is evidence that the practice is on the increase in many parts of the country and I should like to acknowledge the support of those with knowledge of the industrial areas, such as the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) and the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs). Girls as well as boys fall victim to this epidemic, and hence the support for the Bill of the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight).
Tattooing goes in epidemics. Schoolmasters have noticed rashes of tattooing in schools. The people who get themselves tattooed are the children of families where parents exercise little care or control. The consequence is serious social, occupational and matrimonial embarrassment, sufficient to lead to psychological problems severe enough to justify National Health Service operations to remove tattoos.
When one considers the question of jobs, it is not hard to imagine how a shopkeeper would not be keen to employ someone with "love" and "hate" tattooed on the knuckles of his hands, with perhaps a buttercup tattooed on one ear lobe and a daisy on the other.
From the social point of view, the Brighton Evening Argus reported last week about a teenager in my constituency who had been tattooed when he was aged only 14 and who was going to a plastic surgery unit to have three tattooes removed. The youth was reported as having said:
I did it because all my friends had tattoos and I did not want to be left out. Now I can't wear short-sleeved shirts or go swimming. I even have to wear a jacket at work because the tattoos show through my shirt. If you get a girl friend she just doesn't want to know when she finds out you've got tattoos. Girls think you are the lowest of the low. I have tried to discourage other young people from having themselves tattooed, but I haven't been very successful.
That is an example of the problem.
As for the matrimonial problems that can arise, one can imagine how a husband might resent it if he found that his wife

had, say, "Elvis Presley" tattooed across her bosom.
We are talking of something which, in some respects, is akin to a tribal fertility rite. In this case, however, it is one of an indelible character. One may set out to have oneself tattooed in the spirit of such a rite, but one may end up by finding oneself branded as an "out person" or even as an outlaw for life.
On 13th February, 1967 I asked a Parliamentary Question of the Minister of Health about National Health Service operations for removing tattooes and I was critical of the use of public funds to remedy the consequences of an act voluntarily entered into—the consequences of what one might call a self inflicted wound.
Some surgeons are sympathetic, while others refuse to operate to remove tattoos. It might be helpful if I give the House some information about the volume of demand for the removal of tattoos from the experience of three hospitals. A surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital has operated to remove more than 200 tattoos in the last two years, many of them on prisoners whose rehabilitation was considered likely to be impeded by their tattoos.
At the London Hospital in one year 85 operations were performed, 48 for the removal of tattoos on males and 37 for the removal of them on females. The average age of these patients having been tattooed was 17 for both sexes. At the Sheffield Royal Infirmary 90 operations were performed in three years to remove tattoos and one-third of the patients were 18 or younger at the time when the tattoos were removed, so goodness knows how young they were when the tattoos were done.
To cover surgeons' fees and full hospital costs—National Health Service costs including the general practitioner, consultant dermatologist, and so on—each operation may cost the taxpayer up to £250.
The British Medical Association supports the Bill and I welcome the support of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ripon (Sir M. Stoddart-Scott) and the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr). The County Councils Association likewise supports


the Bill and the Lancashire County Council and West Riding County Council are among those who are pressing strongly for its support. It is interesting to note that responsible tattooists also welcome the Bill.
My Bill would make it an offence to tattoo a person whom there was reasonable cause to believe was under the age of 18, except in the case of a doctor. I mention this because a surgeon might wish to indicate by means of a small tattoo that an appendix operation had been performed. It might happen that although the patient had been opened up for such an operation, the appendix had not been removed. The surgeon would wish to indicate that fact by a small tattoo.
I have chosen the age of 18 because of the Latey Report's recommendation to adopt 18 as the age of majority. The penalty proposed is a fine of up to £50 in the first instance and up to £100 for a second or subsequent offence. These penalties are in line with those covering similar offences relating to children. The Bill would not extend to Northern Ireland because that is within the competence of the Northern Ireland Government. But it would cover Scotland, although I understand that the problem is not as acute north of the Border. In this connection, I welcome the support of my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith)
The Bill would not be an attack on liberty. Under the present law a tattooist

may be convicted of assault if he tattoos a minor, even with his consent, if it is shown that the minor was unable to appreciate the nature of the act. I cite the case of Burrell v. Harmer, a case which was decided on appeal in the Divisional Court in 1966. This has left tattooists in a dilemma. There is no clear age above which a tattooist may tattoo a person without contravening the law. The support of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) and the hon. Member for Brad ford, East (Mr. Edward Lyons) is sufficient guarantee that our essential liberties within the law of the land are not being eroded.
If the House gives me leave to introduce my Bill it will be a modest move to lessen the difficulties of a substantial group of youngsters who are not in the best position to look after themselves.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Maddan, Sir Lionel Heald, Miss M. Herbison, Sir M. Stoddart-Scott, Mr. Wilkins, Dr. Reginald Bennett, Mr. Spriggs, Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles, Mr. Buchanan-Smith, Dr. David Kerr, Mrs. Knight, and Mr. Edward Lyons.

TATTOOING OF MINORS

Bill to prohibit the tattooing of persons under the age of eighteen years, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday next and to be printed. [Bill 63.]

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.19 p.m.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: On a point of order. I rise, Mr. Speaker, because of a disability which will possibly prevent me from participating in this debate in the way I would have liked.
I did not receive a notice of the business of the House for this week. I appreciate that this was not the result of anything other than a gap in the arrangements of the House of Commons for persons in my position, being a party of one. However, I thought that the matter had been settled some time ago, since when, on the whole, I have received notices of business, with the exception of two weeks.
I did not receive this week's notice and, as a courtesy to me, the Liberal Party Chief Whip was good enough to give me a copy of his party's Whip. Unfortunately, by a further coincidence, an error appeared therein, and the Second Reading of this Bill was put down for Wednesday. [Interruption.] I trust that hon. Gentlemen opposite will listen to what I have to say. I applied for an interview with the Government Chief Whip last May. I am still waiting for my interview.
I have been patient about my position in the House. I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that I know that in the House of Commons I am not regarded as a patty, in view of the definition of "party" given to me by the former Leader of the House, who said that a party consisted of two people, and I am only one. Although I am just one when I cross the Scottish border, I am like Cinderella, being magically transformed into a party with all the responsibilities of a party [Laughter.] Some hon. Members may consider that remark worth sneering at. I am sorry for that because, I am describing the real position in which I find myself. I carry the responsibility of representing one-third of the voters of Scotland, as revealed by the last local election results. It is a responsibility which I do my best to discharge, but if I am not to receive notices of business of the House then it is unfair to me and unworthy of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I did not know the point of order which the hon. Lady was going to raise until a moment or two ago. I have sympathy with the point of view she has expressed. I understand that the business for this week was announced before the House rose. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear "] Order. On the other hand, the hon. Lady raised this matter with me and I raised it with the Leader of the House a little time ago, and I understood that arrangements were being made so that she should get the same sort of notice of non-party business as that which goes to other hon. Members. Perhaps the Leader of the House can say a word about this?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): You are quite right Mr. Speaker. I thought that this arrangement had been made. If there has been a mishap, I am very sorry. I am anxious to help the hon. Lady. If I can be her Prince Charming, as she says she is Cinderella, I shall do all I can to see that she is well informed.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: This seems to be a make-do-and-mend affair. I have every sympathy with the hon. Lady, but is there not any informal arrangement to deal with this matter, apart from depending on the good will of the Leader of the House? Is it incumbent on the hon. Lady to find out about the business? Have we to rely on the OFFICIAL REPORT being sent to us? While I am all in favour of this matter being settled in a friendly way, we ought to know the formal position of an individual hon. Member who is not a member of a particular party.

Mr. Speaker: The formal position is that all hon. Members are guided by what is on the Order Paper and by the Business statement made by the Leader of the House on Thursday, but there are mysterious people, of whom Mr. Speaker has no official knowledge, called Whips and usual channels. They manage to percolate information to hon. Members who belong to their particular political parties. The case of the two Nationalist hon. Members was raised with me some months ago. I took it up with the Leader of the House and I thought that it had been straightened out. In this case, however, it seems that the error is due to an error on the Liberal


Whip. That is a matter which the hon. Lady must take up with her friend, the Liberal Whip.

Mr. George Lawson: Further to that point of order. Is it not the case that we are all entitled to receive, and I take it that we do receive, HANSARD? AS you have said, in HANSARD there are specific details of the business. Since this is a day which is usually important to Scottish hon. Members, are we not entitled to take it that those who represent so many Scottish constituents will be particularly concerned to see that they do not miss the business relevant to Scotland which has been put down for today?

Mrs. Ewing: May I make a further point, arising out of the point made by the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson)? I took most careful note, on the last day before the Recess, of the business proposed for this week, but it has been my experience—which is not long—that sometimes through the parties business is altered by arrangement between those regarded as parties. I am then left in a position of not getting the notice. This is a coincidence. It is very unusual, but it is most unfair to imply that I am not paying close attention to the business of the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are drifting from points of order to points of argument between hon. Members. Mr. Ross.

4.26 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The last major measure of educational reform in Scotland was the Education (Scotland) Act 1945, consolidated in the Act of 1962. It is time to look again at the principles behind it. The changes in the Bill have been discussed fully with the local authority associations and the main teachers' organisations.
One change, I know, is controversial, but the others are likely to prove generally acceptable; they take account of what has happened in education in Scotland in recent years. In most cases we are amending the original Act and are doing so by substituting new Sections for those which are out-dated in some respects. We are also introducing some entirely new provisions.
The result is a Bill which makes a number of miscellaneous changes and indeed which amends or replaces 71 of the 140 Sections of the Act of 1962 which are still in force. It may be that we shall require to have a consolidation Measure after this Bill has been enacted.
It may be for the convenience of hon. Members if, before going through its more important Clauses, I give some indication of the main themes. In the first place, the Bill brings the Statute into line with recent developments in policy and practice. The Act of 1945 was written in terms of a system of school education which envisaged a sharp distinction between primary and secondary schooling and a clear-cut selection for certificate or non-certificate courses at the time of transfer from one to the other usual in Scotland at the age of 12.
In practice, this distinction is now blurred and secondary education is increasingly organised on comprehensive lines. Every education authority in Scotland has submitted a scheme for such reorganisation and, apart from a few outstanding points in two or three areas, these have been approved. About half of the secondary pupils in Scotland are already attending schools organised on comprehensive lines and the proportion will increase as new comprehensive schools and extensions come into use during the coming years.
There have been many other changes since 1945. The expenditure of the education authorities is no longer supported by specific grants. We have new and better ideas for the education and ascertainment of handicapped pupils. We recognise more and more the need to develop leisure time activities especially for our young people. All these developments are reflected in the Bill before the House.
In the second place, we have taken the opportunity to prune the Act of provisions which have become obsolete, some of them dating back to the Act of 1872.
Thirdly, we have simplified some of our procedures which have proved unnecessarily complex or unduly time-consuming, for example, in the reorganisation of endowment schemes or the making of regulations.
Finally, and this is perhaps less apparent because most of the amendments


concerned are minor and included in the Second Schedule to the Bill, we have given greater discretion and responsibility to the education authorities by deleting from the Act at several points the requirement that action should be taken only with the approval of the Secretary of State.
The matters in question range from the approval of subjects in a secondary course to the erection of safety barriers at schools. We recognise that education authorities can and should accept greater responsibility than was thought fit about a quarter of a century ago.
I turn now to the Bill itself. I propose to deal with those Clauses which are of particular importance. Clause 1 is a good example of the themes which run through the Bill. It brings the provisions of the Act of 1962 more closely into line with the realities of Scottish education today; it simplifies and loosens existing central controls, and gives the education authorities—and the teachers themselves—greater freedom and greater responsibility in the detailed running of the educational system.
It also deletes from the 1962 Act a provision which I consider is a survival from another era and is no longer desirable, that is, the power of education authorities to charge fees in their schools.
The Clause replaces the first three Sections of the present Act by four new ones. When hon. and right hon. Members compare the two groups of Sections they will find the following main changes. First, the Act of 1962 regards education as divided into three distinct parts—primary, secondary and further education. The Bill speaks of two—school education and further education. This is not merely an administrative or drafting convenience. It reflects the facts.
School education is one integrated process. Traditionally, it has been divided into two stages—primary and secondary—and since this distinction is still important for some purposes—for example, the qualifications and salaries of teachers—it is preserved, newly defined, however in the Bill.
The division at this stage is becoming less sacrosanct with comprehensive secondary education and the disappearance of a momentous selection procedure at the

age of 12; the teaching in primary departments of subjects like mathematics and French formerly regarded as suitable only for secondary departments; the development of common courses in the first year or two of the secondary school—all these reduce the significance of the old distinction.
Against this background it seems right to amend the Statute and emphasise the unity of school education rather than the parts into which it may, for convenience, be divided. In the course of rewriting these sections we have deleted a number of restrictive conditions regarding the place and content of primary and secondary education.
To prescribe or to approve in detail the subjects to be taught in school is no longer necessary or desirable. Here we are only recognising what has become the practice. No Secretary of State in recent times has, in fact, approved in detail the subjects that are taught in secondary schools.
I turn now to the more controversial part—the abolition of fee-paying—and to the Opposition's Amendment. It is an Amendment which is curious in many ways, because its implication is much more serious and more comprehensive than what is being done in the Bill, which removes an option still available to Scottish local authorities.
The Government have included this change in the Bill because we consider that the charging of fees at schools within the public system of education conflicts with the principle of equality of opportunity for all children. If certain educational advantages or other privileges are, in fact, conferred on pupils by attendance at fee-paying education authority schools, then these advantages and privileges are being paid for to a large extent by the community as a whole.
In many ways more important, the inclusion within an authority's educational system of fee-paying schools which are necessarily selective is impossible to reconcile with the Government's aim of comprehensive secondary education.
The two cannot, in my view, exist satisfactorily side by side. The fee-paying schools, in practice, use two methods of selection. First, the parents must be able and willing to pay the fees.


Admittedly, some of these are not very high, but the effect is to exclude from these schools the children of poorer parents and to preserve the schools as essentially middle-class institutions.
Secondly, children are selected, from among those whose parents are willing to pay, on grounds of ability—in so far as this can be assessed at the age of 4 or 11. This means that these schools are continuing, and are bound to continue, to use a method of selection for secondary courses analogous to the method which we have now rejected as unfair and unreliable for the rest of our schools.
The Town Councils of Edinburgh and Glasgow, as the House will know, oppose this part of the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary met representatives of the councils in Edinburgh in December. Nothing was said which caused us to change our minds about the proposal. The Under-Secretary asked both cities to bring forward proposals for the incorporation of their fee-paying schools into the comprehensive system
There have been some exaggerated figures circulated about the cost of the proposal. As the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum states, our estimate is that the cost of abolishing fee-paying will be about £250,000 a year. We propose to abolish fee-paying with effect from the end of session 1969–70. This will mean that the next session is the last one in which fees will be paid to educational authorities for school education. It will be for the education authorities to work out the necessary changes in the organisation of the schools concerned, with my approval, and I am sure that they will be as anxious as I am to avoid any hardship either to the pupils already in the schools or to the staffs.
The Opposition's Amendment is in very general terms. The House should realise that the present power is used only by a few authorities in relation to a few schools. It applies to 27 schools out of 3,000 in the whole of Scotland. Therefore, we must see this in proportion. When we read the Amendment we begin to wonder whether the Opposition mean some new development in their educational policies—whether, if it is desirable in the case of 27 and they have to do it in this way, they mean to spread it

considerably. We look forward with interest to hearing whether the Opposition consider that fees should be charged in more areas—for instance, whether the authorities should revert to charging fees at Ayr Acadamy, at Kilmarnock Academy and at Ardrossan Academy, a practice which was abolished. This is the implication of the Amendment.
We have no evidence to suggest that there is a widespread desire among parents to pay fees for school education to education authorities. Such criticism of the Bill as has been made seems to have come from those areas where a small section of the community obtains the benefits which they attribute to fee-paying schools at the expense of the community as a whole.
The Amendment must be embarrassing for hon. Members opposite representing English and Welsh constituencies. How can they reasonably vote for it when fee-paying in England and Wales was abolished by the Education Act, 1944, introduced by Lord Butler when he was Minister of Education, with the full support of the Conservative Party of the day?
The Opposition's view now appears to be that fee-paying in authority schools is desirable, but, if so, is it desirable only in Scotland, or in all parts of Great Britain? Is this privilege to be accorded to the parents of Birmingham and London as well as to those of Glasgow and Edinburgh? No doubt we shall have some clarification on this point.
The new sections of Clause 1 also make other changes. The present power to provide a child guidance service is converted into a duty. Almost every education authority now runs such a service and the new provision does little more than recognise this development.
Education authorities' responsibilities in regard to social, cultural and recreative activities and to physical education and training are clarified. They have a duty to provide facilities for these activities for school pupils, and also as part of a course of further education or as an organised leisure time activity, and they are also given a new power to provide them for the general public. That means that the facilities which an authority provides—swimming pools, for example—can be made available to individuals and not simply to organised clubs or groups.
Clauses 7 and 8 may conveniently be taken together, since they are primarily concerned with arrangements for the transfer of pupils from primary to secondary education.
In 1945, when these provisions were originally enacted, they controlled perhaps the most critical point in a child's schooling—the point at which he was selected for a secondary course thought to be appropriate to his ability and aptitude. Anyone experienced in education knows how lamentably this failed to meet the needs and the potentials of children.
This was controlled by detailed transfer schemes involving intelligence tests and examinations—the old "qualifying", or whatever name was given in the appropriate areas—the teachers' estimates and the parent's wishes, which had to be taken into account in the selection process; and it was essential that a parent should have the right to appeal to the Secretary of State if he was dissatisfied with the decision taken about his child.
The amendments proposed in the Clauses recognise that the situation has changed. In those areas where secondary education is now comprehensive, and, in particular, where all pupils take common courses for the first year or two, transfer from primary to secondary education has in some respects little more significance than movement from one class to another. Even where selection remains at this stage for the time being, decisions taken are less likely than they were to be conclusive and final.
So long as there are formal arrangements in an area for transfer from one school and one stage to another—that is, until comprehensive reorganisation in that area is completed—it seems desirable that these arrangements should be set down in a formal scheme subject to the Secretary of State's approval.
In some circumstances it may well be more appropriate that the scheme deals with transfer from, say, a junior to a senior high school—if this is the stage at which selection occurs—than with what may well be an automatic transfer from primary to a common course in the first year of secondary schooling. The Clause as drafted will enable this to be done.
Clause 9 merits some attention. It amends Section 33, which governs the number of commencing or leaving dates

which an education authority may have. At present, the Act allows an authority to have two or more dates on which children begin school, and two leaving dates, or, with the Secretary of State's approval, three dates on which children who have reached the age of 15 may leave school. In practice, most education authorities have two commencing and two leaving dates. Ten of them have an extra leaving date.
The Clause lays down that there will be only two leaving dates for all authorities. We have discussed the proposal with those authorities which now have three and do not expect the change to cause any serious difficulty.
The Clause will also allow any education authority, with the Secretary of State's approval, to have only one commencing date and/or one leaving date. I should, perhaps, make clear that no education authority, so far as I am aware, has any present intention of seeking approval of one leaving or commencing date, and there is no intention of imposing such an arrangement on any authority. Nevertheless, at some time in the future, one or more education authorities may wish to experiment with one leaving or commencing date for their area, and I would not wish to rule out the possibility of such experiments.
Clause 11 is the longest in the Bill. It substitutes 10 new Sections for Sections 62 to 66 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1962, which deal with the ascertainment of children requiring special education and of children who should be reported to local authorities as being unsuitable for any kind of education or training.
The four most important changes which the new provisions make are these. First, education authorities are given a power to ascertain handicapped children under the age of five years. At present, they can act in respect of children between two years and five years only if the parent asks them to do so.
Secondly, the parent is given a right of appeal against the education authority's decision that his child requires special education instead of only, as at present, against the medical certificate on which the decision was based. This is because the decision is essentially an educational one, however important the medical evidence is.
Thirdly, education authorities will be given a duty to keep under review any case in which it has been decided that a child requires special education.
Finally, parents will be given a continuing right of appeal. This is important in these sometimes very distressing cases. Authorities are required to consult parents before reaching a decision that a child requires special education, and a requirement is also laid on the authorities to inform the parent at each appropriate stage of his right of appeal to the Secretary of State.
In short, the purpose of these changes is to give the authorities more effective power to ensure that such children in need are identified and can be helped as early as possible; and, at the same time, to ensure that any action in this matter is taken in full consultation with the parents and that the parents have an adequate right of appeal.
Clause 16 replaces Section 81 of the 1962 Act by a new Section which is considerably wider in scope. It introduces the term "grant-aided colleges", which will cover the colleges of education and central institutions.
Colleges of education and central institutions, although traditionally regarded as quite separate types of educational establishment, are now in many ways much alike. Both provide courses of further education of high standard, and both may provide degree courses. They are financed in the same way. Apart from the fees they receive from their students, almost the whole of their maintenance and capital expenditure is met from the Exchequer. They are run by independent boards of governors. It seemed reasonable to recognise these essential similarities by regarding both as grant-aided colleges for the purposes of the statute.
I consider it desirable also to extend the existing powers of the Secretary of State in regard to the constitutions and duties of colleges of education to cover the central institutions. There are 10 central institutions, national or regional colleges of technology or the arts. Some of them are well known to us. I think, of the Glasgow School of Art, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and the Colleges of Domestic Science. These central institutions are administered by indepen-

dent boards of governors whose powers and duties—this is important—are at present laid down in three types of governing instrument: a Private Act of Parliament, educational endowment schemes, and articles of association.
These instruments are of varying antitiquity. Only three of them have been made or revised since 1939, and three date from before 1914. In the composition of their governing bodies and in the prescription of administrative arrangements, most of them inevitably reflect the conditions and attitudes of a period now long past. All require revision to take account of modern trends in educational thinking and administration. For example, no instrument at present provides for representation of the staff on the governing body, and none provides for the establishment of academic boards of studies.
The new Section gives the Secretary of State power to prescribe the constitutions and functions of the central institutions by regulations. The same result might have been achieved by the separate amendment of each existing instrument, but this would have been a cumbersome and lengthy process. Moreover, as the institutions are now financed by funds voted by Parliament, it seems right that their constitutions should be included in regulations and thus subjected to the scrutiny of Parliament.
The governing bodies of the central institutions have been consulted about the new regulation-making power. Naturally, they are concerned about their right to be consulted before changes are proposed. I regard it as of fundamental importance that, before any regulations are made, there should be full consultation with any interested bodies.
I give a firm assurance now that no regulations will be made under this Clause with regard to the constitution and the general functions of the governing bodies of central institutions before the existing bodies have been fully consulted; and that goes for regulations made after the new bodies have been created, too.
I should like to acknowledge the splendid work which members of these governing bodies have done in managing and developing these great institutions. It is our intention to include in the new governing bodies of the central institutions some members of the old bodies


so that there will be a measure of continuity.

Miss Harvie Anderson: With reference to the central institutions, will the Secretary of State take particular care when making the regulations to allow for the continuance of individual persons on these boards? There are special cases to be made out, for example, in connection with the Glasgow School of Art. I hope that this matter will be carefully kept in mind.

Mr. Ross: I give the hon. Lady the promise which she seeks. We shall bear that carefully in mind.
Now, Clause 19. I mention this Clause because, although not in itself particularly important, it is of some topical interest. It amends Section 85 of the 1962 Act, which gives certifitcated teachers a measure of protection against dismissal by employing authorities. The Teaching Council (Scotland) Act, 1965, extended this protection to registered teachers. Now that registration has replaced certification as the mark of recognition of a qualified teacher, it follows that we should take the further step of limiting this protection to registered teachers only. This is wholly consistent with the recommendations of the Wheatley Committee. The position of certificated teachers in further education has, of course, been safeguarded in the meantime.
I think it right at this point to say something about the General Teaching Council and the difficulties which have arisen because of the failure of a small minority of teachers to register. It is an unhappy situation which, I am sure, the whole House would wish to see cleared up. I do not want to say anything which would make it worse, but it is important that the Government's position should be clearly understood.
The general public and the parents of the children whose education is liable to suffer must find this very perplexing. When Parliament set up the General Teaching Council, in 1965, we followed very closely the unanimous recommendations of the Wheatley Committee in a Report signed by the presidents of the three main teachers' associations, including the Scottish School Masters' Association. This was very widely welcomed

as giving Scottish teachers a new status and a large measure of self-government, putting the teaching profession in Scotland in these respects ahead of the rest of the world.
We gave the Council a large measure of control over admission to the profession and responsibility for probation and discipline, and we made it our principal source of advice on matters of teacher supply and training. Some people thought that we were going too far. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite should remember that, although the Report was published in 1963, they did nothing whatever about it during their last year in office.
We in the Government have always recognised that in setting up the Council we could only provide the framework. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said in the debate on 6th November, the continuation of the Council and its success will and must depend on the willingness of teachers to support it, register with it and take part in its activities. It cannot be sustained simply by the Secretary of State or even by official teachers' organisations.
I believe that we have done all we can. At every stage the Government have shown that they were most anxious to take the teachers with them in doing what the teachers wanted. The House will recall that after we had published the draft Regulations at the end of 1966, in preparation for the registration of teachers from April, 1967, I told the House, on 22nd February, 1967, that in the light of the representations I had received I would not proceed with the regulations; I would postpone registration for a whole year until April, 1968. This was to give the teachers' associations and teachers generally ample time to consider all the implications of the new system.
I did not proceed to make the Regulations until July, 1967, which gave nine months' notice of their coming into operation from April, 1968. A further nine months have elapsed since teachers were obliged to register with the Council. No one can possibly claim, therefore, that this system was imposed upon the profession, or that it has been rushed into it.
I recognise, of course, that some teachers dislike some features of the


Council as at present constituted, and, obviously, it would have been sensible anyway to review this new system once we had sufficient experience of it. I have, however, gone further and made it plain that I am willing to institute an early review if there is a general feeling among the interests most concerned that that would be desirable.
But this is not a matter to be decided by only one of the teachers' associations, and as well as the teachers' associations there are the views of the education authorities to be considered. Let me repeat this: as soon as there is a general indication from the various interests concerned that they want an early review I shall put it in hand.
But those Members opposite who are so anxious to embark on an immediate review should apply their minds to the changes in the composition and functions of the Council they would expect to come out of such a review. Some people seem to think that the council is dominated by the. Secretary of State. In fact, I appoint only four members out of 44; the Wheatley Committee suggested six.
It should be remembered that the Wheatley Committee recognised that the ultimate responsibility for the schooling of the nation's children is, and must remain, that of the Secretary of State. The person who is always kicked when anything goes wrong is the Secretary of State and Parliament would not have it otherwise. To hand over that responsibility completely would be, in the words of the Wheatley Committee, "wholly unreasonable", and I do not believe that any Secretary of State could do this. Subject to that I have an open mind. As I have said, I am quite willing to have an early review.
Finally, I wish to make it plain that I am not sacking teachers. There is a very small minority who, after nine months, have still refused to register with the Council in the full knowledge that this would render them liable to dismissal. This is so because it is implicit in the setting up of the Council by Parliament, and in the registration system for which the Act provides, that, to quote from the Wheatley Report, registration should be obligatory on all teachers who wished to claim entitlement to the benefits conferred by certificated status.

Mr. James Dempsey: If he is not sacking teachers, my right hon. Friend should explain clearly and unequivocally who is. They have received notices. I know such a teacher personally, and my right hon. Friend might also know some.

Mr. Ross: The House passed an Act of Parliament and Regulations. There was no Division on the Regulations, and no debate on them. The effect was to lay down the conditions for registration, and if teachers elect not to register, they are going contrary to what the House has laid down. Even now, I ask such teachers to think again. If they wish to see changes in the Council, the proper way to go about this is to register and take part in its activities. The future influence and indeed existence of the Council depends, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said, on the support of the profession. I am confident that wiser counsels will prevail and that teachers generally realise that we have taken a great step forward.
Without the Council's advice and assistance we should not have made the progress we have made with the long-standing problems of ridding the schools of unqualified teachers. It was only because of the existence of the Council that the present Government were able to make this step. We are the first to do so. We can be reasonably satisfied with the progress made in the primary schools, and know that progress can be made in the secondary schools as well.

Mr. John Rankin: I thought that my right hon. Friend was going to continue his little debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey), but he has left the position to which my hon. Friend referred rather in suspense. Who appoints the teachers? Is not the authority that appoints the teachers the authority that will dismiss them, and is not the only authority that can dismiss them the Secretary of State?

Mr. Ross: That is true. I do not want a long dialogue about this. One of the difficulties was that we were taking away powers from the local authority. The responsibility for having teachers in classrooms belongs to the local authority. But a local authority could employ whomsoever it liked, which was what led to


the employment of so many unsatisfactory teachers. We now have the position that the local authorities are employing only registered or conditionally registered teachers in primary schools, and we have control of the problem for the first time. This is the important point. Of course, we have taken away power which the local authorities had, and we got their agreement to do so.

Earl of Dalkeith: Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify what he means by "early review"?

Mr. Ross: I have been quite clear on that, I have said that I will hold an early review when I have had indications from all those mainly concerned, and it is right to let the matter rest there. By "early review" I do not mean next year or the year after. I mean an early review. I have surely said enough about that.
I am confident that wiser counsels will prevail. The establishment of the council has led to a very considerable improvement in the status and function of the profession. The differences about the composition of the Council are relatively unimportant by comparison with the need to work together to make the council a powerful and influential instrument for good in Scottish education.

Mr. George Younger: The right hon. Gentleman has been trying to explain the background and I agree with almost everything he has said. But why is it necessary, in spite of the general way of doing this, actually to sack these teachers, who are a comparatively small number? Will it help the situation to sack them?

Mr. Ross: This provision is already in the Statute. The Regulations have the full force of Statute passed by this House. By failing to take this action, these teachers have put themselves out. The responsibility is theirs. We all had plenty of time to talk, think and argue about this and at the end the Regulations remained in their present form.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: I understand that it has been stated in Scotland that local education authorities, which were under the impression that they were obliged to issue dismissal notices to unregistered teachers by 27 January, have been told that there has been a four

months' extension. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm whether this important climb down by the Government has been made?

Mr. Ross: I cannot confirm that. I shall have to see what is implied in that situation, but if there is anything important in it my hon. Friend will refer to it in replying to the debate.

Mr. Lawson: If there is a persistence of this hostility towards the council—which was set up at the request, over the years, of the teachers themselves—would my right hon. Friend consider bringing in a short Bill to repeal the 1965 Act, which set up the Council, and so let us get back to where we were before?

Mr. Ross: I do not think that that would be a helpful thing to announce at the moment. All teachers are surely aware of the importance of the decisions taken about this matter. They will, no doubt, ponder very carefully before they take action which may well influence the existence of the council. I consider the council—as the House does—a very considerable advance in relation to what the teachers in Scotland wanted at the time of the strike of 1961—greater status and a greater measure of control of entrants to their own profession. I am sure that they will not lightly throw that advance away.
Clause 24 simplifies the procedure for making Regulations under the 1962 Act. Under the existing procedure, every set of Regulations made must normally be published first in draft and sent to every education authority, and only after the lapse of 40 days, during which education authorities and any other interested person may make representations on the draft, can the Regulations be finally made. This procedure is most unusual and I know of no parallel outside Sc sh education. It tends to delay the making of Regulations unnecessarily. We propose to replace it by the normal procedure under which the Secretary of State makes Regulations without first publishing them in draft.
This change will not apply to regulations made under the Teaching Council (Scotland) Act, 1965, because we gave specific pledges at that time in relation to them. But the change does not mean that education authorities and others directly concerned will lose their present opportunity to influence the nature of any


regulations which may be made. On the contrary, it will be a corollary of this change in procedure that consultation before decisions are made and regulations drafted will be the normal practice. This is the procedure under other Acts and it works well. Time does not permit me—

Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: Hear, hear.

Mr. Ross: I thought that it was fair to give way to hon. Members on both sides of the House who wanted elucidation of certain points. I cannot give way and also be accused of having taken too long. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: The right hon. Gentleman has had 50 minutes.

Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman has still further delayed me.
As I was saying, time does not permit me to describe the effects of the other Clauses. But all are, in my view, useful and necessary, whether they repeal outmoded provisions, modify existing powers or restate them in simpler and more appropriate terms. If right hon. and hon. Members have any questions on these, my hon. Friend will be glad to answer them.
This is a valuable Bill. It recognises that reform and development are constantly taking place in education and in educational practice and must be reflected in Statute. I repeat that most of what we are proposing is not controversial and is acceptable—indeed welcomed—by education authorities and by the teaching profession. The one provision which has so far raised serious opposition—the abolition of fees in education authority schools—is, in our view, essential if we are to pay more than lip-service to the ideal of equal educational opportunity for all our children in which, at least on this side of the House, we steadfastly believe.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. Michael Noble: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which prevents parents from making any contribution to the cost of local authority schools through the payment of fees

This debate is taking place on the Floor of the House instead of upstairs, as is the usual practice, because the Opposition feel strongly on the subject of the Motion. But I warmly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that education in Scotland and in the United Kingdom as a whole is changing, doing so mainly for the better, and that this sort of Bill is right and proper to bring in from time to time in order to make our legislation clear and simpler as well as to introduce new themes as they become appropriate. This provides an excellent opportunity for those on both sides who regard education as a most important part of the Government's job, as well as that of the local authorities, to provide their own ideas without dividing on narrow party political aspects. This is the right way and has always been the practice of the House in education debates.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the current problems concerning the G.T.C., and therefore I want to say two or three very short and, I hope, helpful things. We on this side of the House have supported the Government pretty broadly in the adoption of the legislation. The right hon. Gentleman said that, although the Report was made in 1963, we did nothing about it, but he will remember that when he took office there was a Bill almost entirely drafted and which he picked up and used, with very minor changes, as his own Measure.
There was at least a great deal of work done, which made life a little easier for him at the time. I agree that a year or two ago there were many people who feared that the Secretary of State was exercising too much control over the G.T.C. He and I shared, to some extent, the feeling that a Secretary of State has to have some special responsibility in this regard. The situation has changed considerably, at least as it has been reported to me in correspondence.
There is now, it appears, a feeling among teachers, not that the Secretary of State has too much control, but that there are perhaps too many people on the G.T.C. who are not practising teachers. This is merely a reflection of what I believe is one of the underlying worries of the present situation. I will say no more in case I should make more difficult a situation which I regret and which I hope can be solved.
We were impressed by the right hon. Gentleman's sincerity when he said that he is willing to have an early review. I understand the difficulties of saying exactly when it will be or who is to demand that such a review should take place. Obviously it has to be from a consensus of views and not from one single source that the demand comes. On the other hand, we have been told within the last 24 hours that local authorities have been notified that 27th January is not the critical date. If that is so, then the Secretary of State, in conjunction with his statement about an early review, may well have done something significant to help the situation.

Mr. Richard Buchanan: Is it not in the teachers' conditions of service that they must receive two months' notice and that this two months' notice from 27th January is the reason for the subsequent delay?

Mr. Noble: I cannot do more than state what I have been told from sources outside this House. I am only too willing to tell the Secretary of State afterwards if he wants to know where the information came from.
I want to concentrate on three things in the Bill. The first is an item which I do not quite understand, the second is that part of the Bill with which I wholeheartedly agree, and the third is that part of the Bill with which I wholeheartedly disagree. Clause 7 is the first item. In the 1962 Education Act, on which this Bill is based, it very sensibly says in Section 29(2) that if both the education authority and the Secretary of State agree, a parent shall not be entitled to select a course of education from which his child will not profit.
It seems that the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to edge out of a different situation now. He has a responsibility to protect a parent in dealing with a powerful local authority, and he is abdicating that responsibility. It does not seem right for him to argue that he will be open to appeal at the time of transfer from primary to secondary education. His Circular No. 614 of 29th June, 1966, makes it clear that the important decisions are to be taken during the course of secondary education and not

at the time of transfer. Paragraph 8 of that Circular says:
The primary schools should not be expected to indicate the kind of secondary course which might be most suitable for each pupil; this in the Secretary of State's view, is essentially a matter to be decided after the pupil has had experience of secondary school work.
This is very much in accordance with what he said at the beginning of the debate. He goes on:
He asks authorities ought not to set external tests; nor should primary schools devise internal examinations specifically for the purpose of preparing information about the pupil for the secondary school. The information sent to the secondary schools should be based on normal primary school work.
What I do not understand is why the Secretary of State wants to opt out of it. There are not many decisions of this sort, I believe that it is in the order of 100 a year, and perhaps of that number 30 or 40 of the appeals succeed. The load does not seem to be a very great one, and yet I have no doubts that the parents feel that in having this appeal to the Secretary of State they have their own special interests very carefully considered. Many parents who never appealed in the past, or perhaps even thought of it, will lose the reassurance provided by an independent person to whom they were able to appeal.
The second point I turn to is the problem of how to deal with handicapped children. There are about 11,600 handicapped pupils in local authority and grant aided schools. This is an opportunity for myself and for all hon. Members to express our gratitude for the wonderful work done by private organisations in this area. There are such organisations as Dr. Barnardo's, the Eastpark Home in Glasgow, Donaldson's School for the Deaf, the Trefoil School and the Spastics School. All of these depend to a quite remarkable degree on the support and work of volunteers and dedicated professionals. Without them the system would not exist. It is their experience that has contributed so much to legislation for the handicapped.
This Bill takes several important steps forward in dealing with the handicapped. It puts in front of local authorities the problem of the child identifiably handicapped at an early age, and highlights the need to take a decision on that child's future long before the question of schooling would be expected to arise.

Mr. A. Woodburn: Does the right hon. Gentleman not feel that he ought to pay a tribute to the teachers in public service who give very devoted attention to these handicapped children when they could be teaching children, with perhaps more satisfaction, in normal schools?

Mr. Noble: Of course I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I willingly join him in paying tribute to all teachers. Often these people in the special schools get forgotten because they are not part of our normal teaching profession.
Not all children can be educated, even at a special school, and there is a slight danger when we debate a subject of this sort in perhaps giving too much prominence to this part of the Bill. The problem is one of multiplicity of individuals, each one facing different difficulites. It is impossible to legislate to cover all these tragic cases. What we must do is to try to ensure that local authorities are not prevented by some statutory restrictions from doing what is needed in a particular case. Often it is not the local authorities; who will make the case studies and provide the training and advice that is required. Voluntary organisations and their staff are more flexible. They have the time and effort and are able to devote attention on a scale impossible in any salaried structure.
What legislation must do is to lead a handicapped child to an organisation which can then assess the situation and allocate the right treatment and training for the condition. The parent is looking for advice and support, not for a specific course of treatment. In the Social Work (Scotland) Act, the single-door approach was introduced as a means of coping with families in trouble. The same attitude is needed for the handicapped child and his family.
In such cases the local authority must provide the umbrella of buildings or specialised medical treatment under which the many voluntary bodies can operate and co-operate. We must avoid the impression that Clauses such as this are some magic wand that will right, almost overnight, the difficulties and frustrations faced by families with handicapped children. The Clauses are very long and complicated, and we have to take care in handling this subject. In-

evitably parents in such circumstances are often desperate for solutions to problems very nearly insoluble, and we must not give the impression that we in Parliament, or even in city chambers, can wave a magic wand and produce quick answers to all their problems.
Such people are only too willing to grasp at any glint of hope. I am certain that this will go a long way to help them, but we must be careful that they do not get the impression that their problems will be solved by these new and rather complicated Clauses.
May I now come to the main part of our objection to this Bill, in fact the only part of the Bill to which we seriously object. That has to do with the fee-paying schools. I do not find it one atom embarrassing to have to ask my English colleagues to come to the House this evening and vote against the Clause. The reasons why I do not find it embarrassing are twofold. The first one is that in England there is a different system of education; I do not say that it is better, but it is different. England has direct grant schools which provide much of the transitional system between the independent and the public schools. Secondly, I cannot believe it is right that we should in this House cause embarrassment to our English colleagues by asking for special conditions to apply in Scotland. We have an enormously long tradition of separate educational systems, and I am certain that all my English colleagues, whether they think that Scotland is better or worse than England in its educational system, would fully accept that if we want to we can have our own independent ideas about our education and we are perfectly entitled to support them. So there is no embarrassment to me in that regard.
May I make it quite clear that we do not envisage a vast extension of fee paying from the 27 schools up to 3,000, or whatever the total may be, and this will become clear as I develop my point. The problem that I find difficult to assess is why the Secretary of State is choosing to do this part of the abolition of fee-paying schools in this Bill. Why has he chosen simply the local authority schools? If his feeling is as serious as he said it was that the advantages were being paid for by the community as a whole, surely he should have gone the


whole hog and done it in the grant-aided schools and, perhaps, in his wisdom, the independent schools as well. This seems to be a curiously small bite to take at this cherry at this time. The Secretary of State argues that in a curious way the advantages are being paid for by the community as a whole, and this I cannot accept in the context of what we are discussing in the Bill.
Some of these schools have been in existence for a great many years, many centuries, and if we are to change something which has played an important part in Scottish education, then the only reason for which we can claim a change must be that the local authorities or the parents, or both, feel that this is an improvement in purely educational standards. If we make changes in education for purely dogmatic reasons then we are liable to do great damage to education as a whole. We need not only a high average education for the country as a whole; we need also a high top stratum of excellence to provide nationally people who will be outstanding in the various spheres of work that are important to our country.
I would like to examine the records of Glasgow's fee-paying schools and take the average for the years 1963 to 1965 which are the latest for which I have figures. The comprehensive schools received 67·3 per cent. passes at H-level and 66·2 per cent. at O-level; the senior secondary schools received 67·6 per cent. passes at H-level and 67·5 per cent. at O-level; the fee-paying schools received 80·2 per cent. at H-level and 80·4 per cent. at O-level.
The Secretary of State was somewhat scathing about the selection of children at 4 years of age or at the age of 12, but at least on these purely academic results they have done considerably better than the other sort. I am not drawing the conclusion that, because the comprehensives were bottom, therefore they are the worst. They are the newest and have the more immediate problems to sort out. One argument which is commonly made is that these better results are due to a much higher teacher-pupil ratio, but this is simply not so, as is admitted by Mr. Alan Brown, who was a great supporter of the comprehensive system. Writing in the Glasgow Herald on 5th November,

he said that the size of upper school classes in the comprehensives is usually smaller than those in the fee-paying schools because of the number leaving at 15 or 16. This is borne out by the statistics in Glasgow where, in 1967, 68 per cent. and 32 per cent. of pupils in comprehensive schools stayed on until the fourth and fifth year against 96 per cent. and 85 per cent. in the fee-paying schools.

Mr. William Small: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how many uncertificated teachers taught in these schools during the period he mentioned?

Mr. Noble: This argument is slightly irrelevant. I know that there is a problem with uncertificated teachers, but when one is talking of a difference of something like 14 per cent. I cannot believe that this is the answer.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Noble: May I just finish what I am saying. I do not want to keep the House very long and everyone will wish to speak. There is not a vast number of uncertificated teachers in the comprehensive schools in Glasgow—

Mr. Woodburn: On the point with which the right hon. Gentleman was dealing, I cannot speak for Glasgow schools, but I know that in Edinburgh the fee-paying schools screen pupils very tightly and refuse to take pupils below a certain standard. They start with a high stratum of intelligence and refuse to take the lesser pupils, so the average is bound to be worse in the other public schools.

Mr. Noble: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I am certain that there is some selection. The Secretary of State said that he could not see how the selection could be effective at the age of 4 or 12. Therefore, the two right hon. Gentlemen should get their arguments in line. They may both be right. However, educationally, fee-paying schools have paid off, in broad terms, for Scotland.

Mr. Rankin: Mr. Rankin rose—

Mr. Noble: I will not give way, even in the face of the guile of my old acquaintance, the hon. Member for


Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin). I wish to finish my speech quickly.

Mr. Ross: The relevant point is this. One can easily achieve a 90 per cent. pass rate if one controls those who are presented. This is one way in which some schools achieve very good records. There are other schools which give every child a chance; they put them forward if they have a chance of passing. Therefore, percentages can be very misleading. I should like to be clear about the statistics before judging the effectiveness of what the right hon. Gentleman is saying.

Mr. Noble: I am prepared to discuss this matter at great length with people from both areas to ascertain the percentage. Inevitably, I do not have all the figures with me. It is, however, significant that a very large number of people stay on for extra years of education at the fee-paying schools. I hen higher rate of examination passes and the stronger urge to take full advantage of education other than in the comprehensive or senior secondary schools is an important factor.
I am sure that there are ways in which one could improve the fee-paying schools. I have no doubt that that is so, and that it always will be so. If the Government had put forward sound ideas to improve the fee-paying schools, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I would have supported them. But if they want to abolish them, we must oppose the Government.
I turn to the other argument about resources. The Secretary of State said that the advantages were being paid for by the community as a whole. I do not understand that phrase. The immediate effect of abolishing the fee-paying nature of these schools is, as the Secretary of State says—and I accept his figure—to put an extra burden of £250,000 on the ratepayer and taxpayer. This is a curious thing to do when everybody in local authorities and in Government is being asked to save money. It is also odd to do it when Glasgow and Edinburgh, the two main cities concerned, want to keep them.
It seems to me from what I have been told that most of these schools are not structurally suitable for comprehensive schools or sited in the right places for comprehensive education. It may well be that, over and above the loss in fees,

we may have a considerable extra bill for school-building in order to cope with the situation. Neither the Secretary of State nor anybody else has said that fee-paying schools are more expensive to run and maintain than other schools.
I am therefore left in considerable doubt about what advantages are being paid for by the community as a whole. If this is a further step, as it may well be—and the Secretary of State has not said that it is—towards abolishing grant-aided and independent schools, perhaps I can understand why he has not gone further because the cost of doing that would be very large at a difficult moment.
Let us consider some other possible arguments for this move. Some Socialist friends of mine say that it is entirely wrong that parents should be able to purchase a higher education for their children. I remind the House that this is Human Rights Year and that the United Nations Declaration states that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education which their children shall receive. Is the Secretary of State hoping to emulate the late Henry Ford, who is reputed to have said that one could choose any colour one liked for one's model T Ford as long as it was black. If that is what the Secretary of State means by choice, he is as much out of date educationally as a model T Ford would be on our motorways today.
Or is the Secretary of State saying that Scots parents, who, for at least three centuries, have been world leaders in making personal sacrifices to give their children the best education they could afford, must not afford approximately £20 to £40, which is the level of fees per year, for their children's education, at a time when we read in the newspapers that joiners on the QE2 are taking home £100 a week? If so, the whole concept is completely out of step. The fees paid are very small in relation to any sacrifice which any tradesman, working in Glasgow and Edinburgh, would have to make to pay for the education which he wants for his children.

Mr. Rankin: That is not the issue.

Mr. Noble: Is it argued that we should try to seek bland uniformity with


England? If so, we reject that. I am surprised—and I am sure that the hon. Lady the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) will want to make her contribution to this debate—that the S.N.P. seems to support uniformity with England in this context. I do not take issue with the Secretary of State in believing that comprehensive education is often the best. However, I take issue with him that this is the only way in which one can educate children. I hope that he has studied the Report published last October of the National Foundation for Educational Research, a quite expensive foundation, costing £200,000, which was set up by the right hon. Gentleman's own Government. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is wondering whether the results of the Foundation's first report justify his belief in total comprehensive education.
The arguments, many of which have been put forward in letters to the newspapers, are, on the whole, fairly "phoney". I do not believe that the argument about abolishing selection can possibly hold water in view of Clause 7 in which the Secretary of State accepts as essential selection at some time.
I should like the House to consider the excellent pamphlet entitled "Living in Scotland", which sets out for incoming industrialists the genuine advantages of going to Scotland and taking their families with them and what they will find in housing, education, recreation, and so on. Considerable play is made with the amount of cheap fee-paying education available in Scotland and its excellence.
I am not sure that the Socialist Party as a whole realises that a large number of parents believe that choice matters. It does not realise that there is a large number of business people from Europe, England, America, Canada and elsewhere who have been brought up in a system in which they could choose the school to which they wanted their children to go. The part played by the fee-paying schools in the Scottish education system has not been appreciated enough.
If the Secretary of State makes an order under Clause 1, we shall rescind it. Thereby we shall restore to local authorities, if they want it—the decision will

rest with them—the power to set up fee-paying schools again in their areas so that the great benefits which this type of education has given to local authorities, parents and Scotland may be obtained.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. George Willis: I want to confine my remarks to fee-paying schools. I was extremely interested in that section of the speech of the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) in which he dealt with them, because it seemed to me that his remarks were a little contradictory. In the first place, he set out to assure the House and Scotland that the Tory Party had no intention of extending the system. There was no intention to extend it to all those parts of Scotland in which it does not exist. Then he went on to say what a good system it was. How does he reconcile those two views? One makes nonsense of the other. If it is as good as he says it is, why not give the rest of Scotland the benefits of it? Why confine it in the main to Edinburgh and Glasgow? On the other hand, if he does not want that, I suggest that the logic behind that attitude of mind is that the system is not as good as he tries to suggest.
For very many years, we in Edinburgh have suffered particularly from the fee-paying system. The whole educational structure of Edinburgh is distorted and weakened because of it, to the detriment of those children whose parents do not pay fees. That is my view in general terms, and I want now to look at some of the questions involved.
In my remarks, I do not necessarily criticise those who send their children to fee-paying schools. I have no quarrel with them. I believe that they are genuinely doing what they feel is in the best interests of their children in the circumstances in which they live and find themselves. We are not concerned with that. What concerns us is whether conditions as they exist in Edinburgh produce the best results educationally and socially, and I venture to suggest that they do not.
At present, about 10 per cent. of Edinburgh's school children attend local authority fee-paying schools. Another 10 per cent. go to grant-aided schools. In addition, a considerable percentage go to


independent schools. Altogether, something like a quarter of the children in Edinburgh attend fee-paying schools of one kind or another.
Speaking for myself, I would like to see not only the local authority fee-paying schools dealt with but also grant-aided schools and, in the course of time, the independent schools. Nevertheless, I congratulate my hon. Friend on having the courage to bring forward these proposals to deal with local authority fee-paying schools. It is a battle which has been waged for at least as long as I have been in politics, which is a very long time.
Not only is it almost impossible educationally to select children at the age of 5—which, in reality, is between 4 and 5—for certain schools. One of the arguments produced is that it takes place and produces good results. I understand, however, that it is almost impossible educationally to do it. In my view, children cannot be selected on an educational basis. Whether that is so or not, it is quite wrong to divide children at the tender age of 5 into social groupings which are; dependent on the ability of their parents to pay fees and then keep them in those social groupings during the most formative years of their lives, from 5 to 11 years of age. I should have thought that it was wrong socially, and I cannot see how it can possibly produce good results to cream off a set of children as if they are better than other children going to non-fee-paying schools.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the social grouping which he does not like would become even more rigid and inflexible on a strict area basis with the setting up universally of comprehensive schools?

Mr. Willis: I am aware that that argument is used and that people tend to congregate in certain areas with social groupings being reflected in schools in those areas. But it depends on the territory covered by a comprehensive school or group of schools. That territory can be made to take in any area that one wants. I should have thought that if a good local authority planned its community properly, it would mix it.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: They can go by bus.

Mr. Willis: That is what happens in Edinburgh at present. A child living next door to Trinity Academy cannot go there, and, instead, has to travel to the other side of Edinburgh. More traffic in the peak hours is caused by Edinburgh children going to school than by people going to work. If anyone doubts that, let him take a bus in Edinburgh at 9 in the morning and see who are his fellow passengers. What the hon. Gentleman suggests contributes to the traffic problems of Edinburgh. I want to get rid of the problem, not accentuate it.
I suggest that it depends upon the area covered by a given school. Certainly children come from all over Edinburgh, travelling five, six or seven miles to attend Trinity Academy. They do it for one of two reasons. It is either because parents think that by paying fees for their children to attend Trinity Academy they are buying some educational privilege, or they think that they are buying a social cachet which will be of value to their children later in life. If it is possible to buy educational privileges, I suggest that it is wrong when at the same time we talk in terms of equality of educational opportunity. It makes nonsense to talk of equality of opportunity if it is possible to buy an educational privilege for one's children.
It is suggested by some that there is no difference between the fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools. In that case, local authorities are working a confidence trick on their general ratepayers. If a trader did that when attempting to sell his goods, it would land him in goal for about two years. That does not make sense to me. Either a parent is buying an educational privilege or he is not. If he is not, he should be required to pay nothing extra, unless, of course, he is being somewhat altruistic.

Mr. Younger: The right hon. Gentleman should not forget that about a quarter of the children attending fee-paying schools are allowed to go there free of charge particularly because they cannot afford even the very small fees payable.

Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman must not try to excuse the system merely because a small number of children attend fee-paying schools free of charge. In


any event, that does not destroy the argument about the system itself. It is really a method of preserving it.
If they are not purchasing an educational privilege, they are purchasing a kind of social cachet. When the child leaves school and goes out to get a job in Edinburgh he will find avenues of employment open to him which are not open to the non fee-paying child. Many bosses in Edinburgh opt for the child that has been to the Royal High. The boy who has been to the Royal High, irrespective of whether he goes on to higher education, has better avenues of employment open to him than the child who has been to non-fee-paying school. It is wrong that parents should be able to buy this social cachet which allows a child to get into other jobs. Looking at it in reverse, they are buying themselves out of unpleasant and less profitable forms of employment. I do not agree that that should be done. I do not find children who have attended fee-paying schools at the coal face, on the footplate, driving buses or on the workshop floor.

An Hon. Member: That lets the Labour Party out.

Mr. Willis: There are a number of Members on this side who went to non-fee-paying schools, and this is where they have landed up. Whether that is good or bad is not for me to say. Fee-paying schools tend to create a lot of social bitterness and frustration which cannot be good from a social point of view.

Mr. Alex Eadie: I do not know whether my right hon. Friend heard the remark of the hon. Gentleman opposite who inferred that people who have been to fee-paying schools are not found in the Labour Party. Is the argument being advanced by the Opposition that if we take out the fee-paying schools the membership of the Tory Party will decrease considerably?

Mr. Willis: Whether its membership decreases or not, they have to go a long way to get away from this domination of Eton. If a man has been to Eton he is almost guaranteed a place in the Cabinet in a Tory Administration. It is the highest social cachet of all. I think that this kind of education is socially wrong.
One of the bad effects in the public sector in Edinburgh is that because so much of the educational system there is fee-paying, either in the form of local authority, grant-aided schools or private schools, a third of secondary pupils go to fee-paying schools. This has led to the general acceptance by middle-class and professional people of the fee-paying system of education, which is the system in Edinburgh.
What is the result? Whether we like it or not, an aura of inferiority surrounds the public sector. People tend to accept the environment in which they live, which means that they look upon the non-fee-paying school as inferior. That cannot be very good either.
It has certain other effects. This creaming off of a great section of the school population which is more likely to have certain educational potential makes it almost impossible to create a decent comprehensive system. This is the situation in Edinburgh. Therefore, socially and educationally, the results in Edinburgh are bad. It is a good thing to get rid of that system. In doing that we are accepting or agreeing with the Educational Institute of Scotland, a very large educational body, which has condemned the fee-paying system as socially unjust and tending to give a dubious educational privilege.

Mr. John Brewis: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me, with his knowledge of Edinburgh, what he intends should happen to these schools once fee-paying is abolished? I understand perfectly that this is an abolition of fee-paying. But what is to happen to these school buildings in Edinburgh? Are they suitable for comprehensive schools?

Mr. Willis: They stand as they are at present. The system will have to be adapted to make the best use of them. Some, which have recently been added to, should not present a great problem for the purposes of a comprehensive system. It may be there is an odd school which will present difficulty but, from my knowledge of what exists, it should not be a great problem. We will use the buildings. They were used for teaching children and we will use them for the purpose of teaching children. The point is that we will be bringing them within


a system which enables a considerable degree of flexibility.
This leads me to a point that was made against me recently by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith) and which came out today in the speech of the right hon. Member for Argyll, that somehow we were destroying or interfering with the right of a person to choose the education he wants for his child. That right does not exist for many people today. No one has the right to send his child to Eton unless he can afford it. A miner in my constituency has no right to send his child to the Royal High, because he has not £400 a year to send him there. This is nonsense. Applying a system of selection, the parent has no choice because someone else decides whether the child will go to the school. There is a greater possibility of a parent participating in the decision-making regarding the education of his child if it is done on a comprehensive system. One of the values of the comprehensive system is that it does not create a rigid structure in which the child has to move, but enables the parent to be consulted and to suggest what might be in the child's best interests. All these matters seem more desirable than to retain a system that is socially unjust and enables people to purchase educational privilege.

Mr. Woodburn: My right hon. Friend seems to be making a distinction between the Royal High and the comprehensive system. Is not the Royal High a completely comprehensive system where children go from infancy through to university?

Mr. Willis: I agree. I understand that the Royal High building will be able to be used in a free comprehensive system. This was one school which I had in mind when I said I could not see many difficulties about it. There may be the odd problem, but if the results we are trying to achieve are worth while, I am sure we will overcome any difficulties.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: I find it difficult to understand why the Government want to bring in this Bill now. In the first place, if its provisions are implemented it will cost a great deal of money, and it would be wise in the nation's present parlous

economic condition not to spend more. We are all seeking ways of curbing public expenditure and keeping down costs. Second, a Royal Commission is sitting on local government in Scotland which will recommend some marked changes in local government structure, which must affect the education authorities. It would surely be better to wait and see what is proposed rather than to legislate, when, shortly thereafter, we would have to bring in further legislation to amend this Bill.
Third, the Bill in many parts—particularly that part dealing with corporation fee-paying schools—seems to interfere with and dictate the workings and wishes and duties of local authorities. Education is primarily a matter for local authorities, and it is a bad principle when duties are delegated always to be interfering, chopping and changing, saying what is to be done and generally directing.
Fourth, for more than 50 years, local authorities in Scotland have, within certain limits, had the power to charge fees at their schools. In Edinburgh, the system has worked well. The city probably has, overall and for its size, better schools than any other city in Britain, perhaps in the world. Many of them are world famous. There is great variety among the schools. At no time during my time in the House, which is nearly 12 years now, have I been approached by anyone in Edinburgh to ask that the educational arrangements be upset or altered. Rather, the slogan has been: "Hands off our schools; let us get on with the job without interference and without the imposition of doubtful and untried theories".
It seems common sense, when schools are functioning well and turning out first-class pupils, to leave them alone and to direct any extra money and resources towards improving the structures of older and less good schools, and strengthening the staffs in them. That in my view, and I believe it to be the view of my constituents and people in Scotland generally. It seems sound sense.
It is apparent that the Clause aimed at abolishing fee-paying is paving the way to a subsequent attack on the grant-aided schools such as Watsons or Heriots, and I must warn people in Edinburgh and Glasgow that this is on the way. They should understand this. I hope that they


will and that they will return the proper verdict at the next election.
May I commend the statement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) that if this part of the Bill goes through we will reverse it. This will give great satisfaction generally. May I urge him, further, to say that a Unionist Government would not interfere in any way with the direct grant schools, but would give them every encouragement in future.
I said that my constituents and people in Scotland generally do not support any radical changes in education. There are excellent schools of all types. One of the best is Libertine School, in my constituency, which is not fee-paying. But, in the end, much depends on the staff and children, and not all are equal either in intelligence or in characteristics. Calvin Coolidge once said that it is no good trying to make people equal who are born biologically unequal, and I agree.
The Bill seems to be largely based on false doctrine. Its implications have not been worked out. Do hon. Members realise that the fee-paying schools in Edinburgh could be filled three times over, so popular are they? I am not sure whether we should not have more fee-paying schools, rather than fewer. There is no infringement of human rights. In fact, the aim is that parents should have full right of choice.
The abolition of fee-paying, according to the Secretary of State, will cost £250,000. In Edinburgh, that is another 2d. on the rates. But we must not forget that the rates support grant is to be tinkered with, very much to Edinburgh's detriment, and education comes into the rate support grant. This will end in at least another shilling on the rates for Edinburgh citizens. I hope that they will understand this and clearly grasp how their pockets are being rifled by this Government—

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Millan): The change in the distribution of the rate support grant has, of course, nothing to do with the Bill. What is more, it is not something imposed by the Government on the local authorities, but is agreed with the local authority associations and interests in the normal way. The only authority in

Scotland which is standing out on this is, of course, Edinburgh, because Edinburgh happens to have gained, as the other authorities obviously think, rather unfairly from the formula in the past. This has nothing to do with the Government and nothing to do with this Bill.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: There is no doubt why this is so—because they are going to be saddled with it and they do not like it. If the hon. Gentleman does not believe me, he should ask people in Edinburgh. We do not like it, and we are prepared to fight.
If there is to be comprehensive education, which I understand is the aim, and these schools are to be brought into the system, hon. Members must understand that further costs will be involved, because the schools concerned are not in the right places. The net result will be many schools in the west and north of Edinburgh and practically none in the south. No one has calculated what it will cost to erect new schools or convert the present ones. The Royal High School, among others, cannot be comprehensive because it is for boys only.
We have had no answers to these points from the Secretary of State, and I hope that we will hear something on them today or in Committee. This part of the Bill is unwanted, it is costly and it is dictatorial. Its implications have not been studied or thought out and it should be thrown out.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. Richard Buchanan: There seems to be a reversal of normal practice in the Bill. Recent education legislation has aimed at codifying and simplifying the law, but the Bill seems to reverse the process in as much as some Clauses do not propose Amendments to the main Act of 1962. Therefore, that Act, as amended, will not be the consolidating Act which we had hoped that it might be. All consolidating in the future will, therefore, mean another Bill. I am surprised about this, since the Prime Minister was asked on television only last night why there should be all this complicated law. It, therefore, surprises me that the Bill was not brought in simply as a series of Amendments to the 1962 Act. I do not know whether that is possible, but it is eminently desirable.
I have two other small apprehensions and a fairly large apprehension about Clause 1, which has nothing to do with fee-paying. My first apprehension centres round Clause 9 and the danger of the single leaving date. My fear is that at a time when more and more pupils are staying on at school voluntarily, a single leaving date will mean many more pupils remaining at school until they are almost 16 and, if the school leaving age is raised, until they are almost 17. The recalcitrant pupil will inevitably be forced to stay on, resulting in disciplinary and other problems arising.
In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) an instance arose when a boy was let out of an approved school on licence. I will not describe in detail what happened, except to say that everything went haywire in the school for four months until the boy was returned to an approved school. This is fair to neither staffs nor pupils. It is only recently that the regulation which compelled certificated pupils to stay on at school until the end of the session in order to receive their certificate was rescinded. I do not understand why my right hon. Friend has now decided to go in the opposite direction and apply this regulation to pupils who are mainly not certificated. There seems to be one law for the rich and another for the poor. My right hon. Friend said that he had no intention of requiring local authorities to impose a single leaving age. Nevertheless, an option to take this course is contained in the Bill and I believe that this is a retrograde step.
This bring me to the question of Clause 4, about which my right hon. Friend spoke at length. He is freed under this provision from the necessity of publishing draft regulations. No longer need he have regard to the representations made by those bodies which are interested enough to make comments on these matters. I regard this as a dangerous Clause because no provision is contained in it for consultations to take place The enlightened Secretary of State we now have will always ensure that consultation takes place, but what will happen in future when we may not have such an enlightened Secretary of State? Interested organisations may

first know of these regulations when they are laid. It may be irritating to the bureaucrat and time consuming to have to announce regulations 40 days in advance of laying them, so that the necessary consultation may take place, but that is a true democratic safeguard against an abuse of power when delegated legislation is involved. My right hon. Friend may consider a shorter period in draft.
My apprehensions about Clause 1 are not concerned with the abolition of fee paying. It is inevitable that, in time, this step would have been taken, anyway. Perhaps this Measure is a year or two early in this regard, and this should have been left until we receive the report of the Public Schools Commission on Grant-Aided Schools.
The abolition of fee paying and selectivity is an easy matter for the legislator, but the real job must be done by the local authorities. I have shown people round my constituency in an effort to interest them in sites where new industry could be established. These industrialists have quoted to me what they consider has gone wrong with the Land Commission Act. My recollections of that Act are pretty vague. My fear with this legislation is about the future of comprehensive schools. The trouble is that we tend to pass legislation of this kind and then shrug our shoulders as we leave it to others to implement. This is one of the weaknesses of the Bill.
One can say little in favour of fee paying schools, except that perhaps they have acted as a criterion to headmasters of comprehensive schools in Glasgow, who are always trying to improve Glasgow High or St. Aloysius College. That is not much to say in favour of fee paying, but at least it is something.
Perhaps I should make my position clear. I went to a selective school. My father went to the same school, as did my grandfather. I refer to St. Mungo's Academy. My great-grandfather came from the Highlands, having attended a comprehensive school. I mention this to prove that the term "comprehensive school" is not a new one. We hear a lot these days about "this new mode of education", as though it were a gimmick. It is, in fact, a very old mode of Scottish education, dating from the time when we


were the best educated country in the world.
My three eldest children went to a comprehensive school and I do not believe that they lost anything by so doing. Fortunately, their father happened to be chairman of the schools sub-committee in Glasgow at the time. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) may remember that until that time the lines of education were drawn as rigidly within the comprehensive school as they were for separate senior, junior and modified secondary schools. Much had to be done then and much still remains to be done in comprehensive school". I think I helped in a small way.
St. Mungo's Academy is a selective school, selecting from all over the city. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that the trouble with the comprehensive system is its method of rigid territorial recruitment. This is where one gets trouble with the district gangs of many and varied names. They tend to accumulate as a result of this territorial secondment to schools. It is not a good thing to be too rigid in this matter.
My right hon. Friend pointed out that in England the education authority fee paying school had been abolished. While I agree, I trust that he appreciates that I am arguing for betterment of comprehensive schools. The Inner London Education Authority published an interesting booklet in 1966 when it was still a Socialist body. In paragraph 22 of that booklet it was stated:
What is a Comprehensive School? … Others imagine that it must serve a defined and restricted neighbourhood or that all the pupils within an area will be forced into one particular school: imaginings quite contrary to London's practice and policy".
On page 17 we read in paragraph 24:
Any comprehensive school is likely to serve mainly its own broad neighbourhood but it need not, and under the policy of the Authority should not, draw only from a defined area".
On the question of parental choice, we read on page 25 in paragraph 51:
In this year, parents were given, for the first time, a completely free choice of secondary school, without the restriction of any 'grammar school' category, to be made after hearing the advice of the primary school head".

That step should be encouraged. There should not be rigid adherence to a strict territorial area, and the values of selective comprehensive education should be there for all to receive.
I have spoken about the dangers of being too rigid in this matter. I hope that the ecumenical movement will gain sufficient momentum to rid us for ever of one cause of discontent in our education system and make the job of the educator and administrator much easier.

Mr. William Hannan: Leaving aside the question of ecumenical pursuits, will my hon. Friend try to answer this question? Why is it that the gangs of which he has been speaking are absent at Queen's Park, Bellahouston Academy and North Kelvinside, and they are not fee-paying schools? Will he agree that that is due to social conditions?

Mr. Buchanan: Probably many of the reasons which can be adduced are social, but there is no doubt that gathering as they do in these huge schools there is a tendency in the so-called gangs to have Billy against Dan and Celtic against the Rangers and so on. I believe the case against the selective comprehensive school is well-nigh made by the situation in London. Reasons for parents sending their children to fee-paying schools are three: snobbery, a genuine desire to do the utmost for their children, and to get away from the Ynaff Ynuck, the lout and the layabouts.
We are closing our eyes to reality if we refuse to accept that these conditions disrupt the education of children. We have only to go to the schools and speak to headmasters and teachers to realise the problem they have in maintaining discipline. This is where the permissive society starts—here in this House. It is we who make the laws, and this is where we take away the power of the teacher to discipline and make it impossible for a headmaster to suspend a boy who disrupts the school. If a boy is completely uncontrollable it takes six weeks for a headmaster to get him to a summary court. We must give headmasters and staffs in comprehensive schools enough authority and some sanctions whereby they can maintain discipline in their schools so that comprehensive schools can be given a chance.
Another danger in simply abolishing the fee-paying school is that we are making all the more attractive the independent school and increasing the value of property in good school areas. I have an aquaintance who is a magnificent advocate of the comprehensive school, but when his own child was 12 years of age and had to go to the local comprehensive school it cost him a pretty penny because he moved to Shawlands so that his son could go to the Academy there. He went away simply to dodge the hooligans.
Something must be done to give the staff in these large comprehensive schools some sanctions whereby they can control a pupil who is bent on upsetting the life of the school.
What worries me most in this Bill is the question of "School Education". The Clause effectively eliminates the distinction between primary and secondary education. If the Clause goes through unaltered, education authorities will no longer be required to provide primary or secondary education. It is far too facile an argument to suggest that definitions of this sort are no longer appropriate when maths and French are taught in primary schools and there is a continuing process in the primary school on the basis of experimentation. Primary schools are now teaching maths and French, but they have had enough of experimentation.
I visited one of the schools during the Recess and had a look at what was going on. I was shown essays done by eleven-year-olds in which the spelling was absolutely appalling and the grammar was very bad. I said, "This seems very bad work" but was told, "Oh, no, the advisers now say that you have not to inhibit the child; the child must be given freedom of expression. You inhibit it if you insist on correct spelling and grammar". That is a lot of psychological codswallop. Many of these psychologists in the education service are nothing more than refugees from the classroom. Imagine the psychological effect on any employer of labour who gets a letter applying for a job which is misspelt and in bad grammar.
If this continuing process by age, aptitude and ability in the primary school

means that progression will be by ability and not as at the moment by age we are probably taking a step in the right direction but I have found it a true saying that if one wants to be in the forefront of education—this goes through the whole gamut from Thomas Aquinas to A. S. Neill—turn the clock back 30 years. This question of school education seems nothing more than that—reverting to the old supplementary classes.
If I thought it a psychological experiment, a social experiment or an educational experiment I should probably support it, but I think it is nothing more than an expedient. It is an expedient which presumes a surplus of teachers in the primary schools, and anyone who dares to talk about a surplus of primary school teachers when there are 45 children in a class and there are no tutorial classes is talking nonsense. However, more teachers are now coming to primary schools, and they will be fairly well staffed.
If this business of school education simply means that we are combining primary and secondary education so that extra teachers in primary schools can teach into the second year of secondary education, that is dishonourable. We shall be doing nothing more than diluting secondary schools. As I have said, comprehensive schools have to be watched carefully and given every assistance. Which pupils will get the non-graduate men teachers? Do we think that it will be the pupils who need most attention? Certainly not; it will be the certificated pupils who will get the graduate teacher. I ask for an assurance from my hon. Friend that these are not the thoughts behind the dropping of the definition of providing primary and secondary education and substituting school education. If the intention is, as I suspect, that we are diluting the secondary schools with non-graduate teachers I must have serious thoughts about supporting the Government tonight.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must remind hon. Members that almost every Scottish hon. Member wishes to speak in this debate. Reasonably brief speeches will help.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: I have listened with great interest to the speeches made so far from each side of the House. I enjoyed the vintage extravagances of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), who was back into his old form after his years of restriction on the Front Bench. I was interested in his account of where he was to be found at 9 o'clock in the morning. I understood that he watches the congestion of pupils at the Mound in Edinburgh. On the two occasions in my Parliamentary career when I have rung him up at that time I have found that was not where he was.
Undoubtedly the main interest in this Bill, with much of which I think everyone agrees, is in Clause 1 and the intention of the Secretary of State to take powers to abolish fee-paying in certain schools. Many of these are in Edinburgh and so this matter is of great interest there. The most famous is the Royal High School, which has had the very good taste to move into my constituency in the last few months. So it is natural that I should have tried to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and I do not apologise for making what to an extent will be a constituency speech.
I am by no means forgetful of the fact that the Royal High School dates from the twelfth century. Nor am I in the least careless of its many great traditions. However, I shall not base my arguments against the right hon. Gentleman's proposals to forbid fees being charged at the Royal High and at other schools on traditions which may or may not have existed for centuries. Perhaps I should have taken the trouble to find this out, but I did not. I do not know, though I suspect that fees were not charged when the Royal High School was founded.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: Indeed they were.

Mr. Stodart: In that case the tradition is a very old one indeed. But if tradition alone were to dictate events in education, there could not conceivably be young ladies at Marlborough at present, which I understand there are, nor at many English independent schools. In my day, if there was a sign of young ladies within miles we were all locked up in our

rooms, whereas now young ladies are extremely regular visitors there, and occasionally, I gather, as regular pupils. As a social system changes, so must there be great changes in education, no matter how hard this may be for the traditionalists.
I am very strongly in favour of the principle that, though no one should be denied a good education, those who can afford to contribute towards the cost of education should do so and should be encouraged to do so. I do not confine this view to education. Nor do the Government, because they have had to eat many of their words and act along these lines—reluctantly, admittedly—in certain matters concerning health. They make people contribute towards the cost of prescriptions. It is extraordinarily anomalous that, though parents may want to pay some of their education costs—I, like others, will delve into the reasons for their wanting to do so—the Government propose to stop them from doing so.

Mr. Donald Dewar: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that to make it a fair analogy he would have to argue that the Government, to encourage people to pay for prescriptions, had offered a higher class of drug if it was paid for?

Mr. Stodart: Without doubt, people do not want to pay for their prescriptions, but they have been made to do so. They do want to pay some of their education costs and thus help to relieve the burden on the public sector. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East was too late to hear my earlier compliments to him.

Mr. Willis: Mr. Willis rose—

Mr. Stodart: The right hon. Gentleman has just come into the Chamber again. He might have the grace to listen to me for a few moments. I am perfectly prepared to face this issue and to ask: Why do people want to pay for their children's education? Only each individual parent can give the reason. A whole mass of different reasons would probably be given. I give only three of the many possible ones. First, parents may well like the environment and the physical characteristics that a school provides. They may like the Royal High School out at Barnton with its new


buildings very nicely landscaped, and so on. Secondly, they may believe, as they are entitled to believe, in selectivity; they may believe that this will help their children to develop better. Thirdly, they may want to keep up with the Joneses. That may be described as snobbery if one wants a shorter description. I do not think that any of these things are bad, although some hon. Members do.
I am not so naïve as to think that a desire to keep down rates and taxes is a motivating influence. However, I think that the Government are wrong to take a step which will add at least £150,000 on to public funds, much of which will have to fall on the Edinburgh ratepayers. This step is extraordinary, too, because the Royal High School went out to tender only two years ago—that is, in the lifetime of the present Government—and £¾ million were spent on buildings which the Government knew were to be designed as a selective fee-paying school for boys only.
I am told by people who are educational experts—I am not one—that there are two very strong reasons against the Royal High School going comprehensive. One is that it has been physically constructed for boys only. I am told that it is absolutely useless as a comprehensive school. I asked why there could not be a comprehensive for boys only. I was told that such a school would not be a comprehensive school. Right hon. and hon. Members may shake their heads. I can only say that that opinion was expressed by somebody who is an undoubted expert in education.
Secondly, I think that without doubt, if the Royal High School is to be made a district school, there will be enormous over-schooling in the district. At the moment there are Ainslie Park, Craigroyston and Craigmount projected just across the road, and Broughton started a little further to the east. No survey of the schooling density has yet been made.
There are sound reasons for the Royal High School remaining as it is. I am sure that these reasons apply to other schools as well, but the Royal High School is probably in a unique position as a town school in Edinburgh. This is going back to its tradition, but I repeat that I do not found my argument upon that.
It is not insignificant that even the leader of the Labour Party on Edinburgh Corporation has, according to the note which we have all received of the meeting which took place with the Under-Secretary, said that he, too, thought that there was a special case to be made for the Royal High School.

Mr. Millan: He was not even at the meeting.

Mr. Stodart: Perhaps I have elevated Councillor Williamson to a position which he does not hold. At any rate, he is a very influential and well respected member of the Labour Party on Edinburgh Corporation, and that is the view which he expressed.
If the Government are determined to have their way and to make no exceptions but to go hell-bent for comprehensive education at the Royal High School, may I urge the Minister to give the Royal High a special job to do? Edinburgh has done a great deal of pioneering work, especially medically. It has its transplant unit and its hospital ward unit, which is visited by people from all over the United Kingdom and, indeed, from all over the world, who wish to see how hospital equipment can best be designed and laid out. Why not let us have something of that kind in education as well? Why not, perhaps, have an experimental sixth-form college, taking pupils from all over the city? This is done, I believe, in Sweden and in France, and I understand that there is one such establishment in England, at Mexborough. As I say, if the Government are determined to make the Royal High School comprehensive, that is a field for which the High School might be admirably suited.
To turn to another matter, I was glad to hear the Secretary of State's assurances on the question of consultation with those who will be affected by Clause 16, the grant-aided further education colleges. There has been considerable anxiety about this. Bearing in mind that under the Clause the Secretary of State is to provide for the constitution of governing bodies, prescribe what the bodies are to do, provide for the appointment, pay, discipline and dismissal of staff, approve the fees to be charged, and, finally, even be able to dissolve any grant-aided college, it is essential not only that his assurances should have been given but that they should be written into the Bill.
The right hon. Gentleman described some of these colleges as being national and some as regional. I should have said that Atholl Crescent was neither national nor regional; it is international in reputation, and many Scotsmen—I speak feelingly about this—are grateful for the tuition which has been given to many Scottish girls who went to learn their cooking there.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: At a later stage of my speech, I shall comment on some of the points made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart), but I shall concentrate on the situation which has been highlighted in this discussion of the Bill, that is, the question of local authority fee-paying schools. This has taken a good deal of hon. Members' time today. By far the strongest argument I heard from the Opposition benches was put by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison), when he said that this is the sort of matter which one should leave to a local education authority. If we could not leave to a local education authority the working out of its own pattern of education, its own system and fee-charging arrangements, what on earth could we leave to it? What was the point of local authority initiative?
That is the sort of argument to which I am most readily open, but in this particular case I feel that the principle underlying the question whether education should be predominantly or totally free is so vital to the health of the education system that it must be laid down unequivocally for the whole country. It is in the same category as the leaving age, basic standards for teachers, and matters of that kind.
As I have lived with this problem for most of my life, in the Edinburgh area, I shall concentrate on that aspect of the matter and try to show how pernicious is the system which has developed and what a detrimental effect it has on the education of all sections in the city. There are tremendous misunderstandings being put about in the Chamber today, particularly on the question of choice. There is very little choice, virtually no choice at all, throughout the system. Hon. Members opposite speak as though

parents sit at home, tot up the cash in the box, and then say, "We can make the £14 a term, and that means school X"—and in the child goes. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no more restrictive system, in my experience, than that adopted in Edinburgh and similar places.
Let us take the simple case of a child at a Scottish primary school in one of the large cities. This has actually occurred, not only to the children of many hon. Members; I recall it happening to my own daughter. As my daughter approached the time of her 12-plus examination in the Scottish situation as it was then, it was clear to her—and it was made absolutely clear to all the children in the primary school—that there were three levels of achievement possible. They could do dismally and deplorably and go to the secondary modern. They could do fairly well and then they would go to the secondary school, the school to which most of the children would go. Or they could do extremely well and secure a place in a fee-paying corporation school. This honour would be bestowed, possibly, upon two or three in the class. For it, they were deliberately coached and pushed. When the announcement came, in public and in front of all the children, the headmaster congratulated those who had achieved places in the corporation fee-paying schools; he passed lightly over those who had not managed it, and he commiserated with those who would go to the junior secondary school.
What choice do the parents of children in this position have? I had no choice in that situation. It so happened that my daughter obtained a place in the corporation fee-paying school. But I could not have said to her, "Honestly, I do not believe in this sort of thing and I am sending you among the semi-failures". That would have been impossible. Parents of the "semi-failures" could not say to their children, "We have looked in the piggy-bank, we can manage the £14 and you can go one up". The children would not have been allowed in. There would have been no question of it. At that stage, parents could not say that they would put up a good deal more money and they would send their children to a grant-aided school, because these schools have long waiting lists, most of


the children enter at five, and for later entrants there is a stiff test. It is impossible to change one's mind at a late stage after the qualifying results are available and decide afresh exactly where one wants one's child to go. The only possibility still open would be to go even higher up and buy a place in a totally independent school, the sort of school at which, in many cases, standards are so low that they are only too keen to attract children in, provided that they can pay very high fees.
This pernicious system offers only rock-bottom choice to the parents and imposes most severe strains and pressures upon them and their children. I was amazed when I heard the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South say that he had never had a complaint about the system. One of the most eloquent complaints I have read was that made by a constituent of the hon. Gentleman, Mr. John G. Gray, in his pamphlet on the situation in the primary schools of Edinburgh. It is an extremely impressive complaint about precisely the situation which I have described. His child had obtained a place in one of the best free State schools, but he was told that it was full and that the child would be shelved off into a former junior secondary school with a couple of extra classes tagged on at the end, a school which happened to be in a particularly slummy and bad condition.
I should like hon. and right hon. Members opposite to appreciate that the idea that the system allows a great deal of choice and that the choice is whether one wants to pay or not is totally inappropriate in this situation. It just does not apply. I am certain that most parents would be relieved if the whole elaborate hierarchy of very expensive independent, semi-expensive independent, fairly expensive grant-aided, slightly expensive grant-aided, local authority fee-paying, local authority non-fee-paying but good, local authority non-fee-paying but regarded, perhaps wrongly, as not so good, and all the rest—if this elaborate pecking order was removed and everyone was assured that his children, wherever they lived and whatever school they attended, would have a first-class education on a simple and straightforward basis. That would be a fantastic relief to them.
I know of many parents who have come into a city like Edinburgh from outside, from country towns where this sort of system has never applied, and who have been appalled at what happens. People coming from a country town where there was one school for the town and the surrounding area are shocked at the neurotic way in which some city parents behave, going from meeting to meeting or party to party and saying, "Where is your child going? We could not get ours in; he just failed", and then, on being told about the other child, saying, "You are one up on us". My own wife, who came into the city from outside, felt this very strongly, this idea of status and of privilege. She went to Dingwall Academy—there was only one school in the area—and she, like so many others, is appalled at the pernicious system which now exists, the lack of choice and the pressure upon parents and children—a state of affairs which does not arise outside the cities in the one-school towns or villages.
The effect of the system is spreading somewhat round about the cities. This, too, is deplorable. I remember speaking about this matter to the headmaster of an admirable school in Fife with a great reputation. I put it to him that it was a very fine thing that his school drew all the children from the surrounding area and it had no problems of segregation and class tensions. He replied, "That was true until a year or so ago, until the fast diesel trains came across the Forth Bridge, and some parents discovered that they could get their children into Edinburgh fee-paying schools". Then off a contingent went each morning. The headmaster told me, "When I met the parents at the former pupils" association and said, 'Mr. So and So, are not you satisfied with our school and was your child not happy enough here?', they were embarrassed and said that as far as they were concerned, it had been fine; the change was made because their wives heard that the child of somebody down the street had a cap and a blazer and was at a fee-paying school in Edinburgh, and they could do no less. This was nothing to do with the educational standards of the school but was a cachet attached to fee-paying. This attitude could well erode the situation in surrounding schools."
There are one or two other ways in which this situation is pernicious. It has a bad effect on the staff, particularly of local education authority schools that are non-fee-paying. They feel markedly that they are in a second-rate school, even when it is not true—and it often is not. Even when their own efforts have made the school adequate, they do not feel that they are on the same level. I remember discussing this with the headmaster of one of Edinburgh's most prominent free State schools who asked me, "What would you think if every March you had an intake of boys and girls into your school and you asked them, 'How many of you have applied for the free places granted by the corporation in its own fee-paying schools?' and two-thirds of the class put up their hands? By September, one-third of this class will have gone to the fee-paying State-run schools, leaving two-thirds behind clearly feeling that whatever the staff did, this school was second best". I commiserated with the headmaster and appreciated the loss he and his school had suffered, but suddenly he looked at his watch and said that it had been an interesting interview, but he must dash off and collect his son from Watson's.
In addition to the unfortunate effect on the staff, there is an equally bad effect on the fee-paying schools, and the further up one goes the worse it becomes. A certain number of pupils in a fee-paying school I visited found that they could not keep up with the academic pace. The headmistress at this girls' school told me that they would have been much better off doing a course that involved more domestic science and handwork, but when the school produced a course of this kind the parents complained and said they would rather the children sat uncomprehending at the back of an academic class, failing year after year, than doing things that suited them, because they had got them into a fee-paying school. They wanted the cachet of this purely academic education, however unsuited to the children.
This pecking order naturally creates a state of tension and the idea that parents must run on the treadmill. There is a very bad effect on the corporation schools in fixing the corporation's attention on its own fee-paying schools. It is shocking

that in Edinburgh money should have been found to rebuild the Royal High School, and Gillespie's, both of which are fee-paying schools, and had quite reasonable premises, while appalling secondary schools serving slum areas in the city were left. I have been impressed with the way in which the staff at these schools, which are derelict in terms of buildings, have made tremendous efforts to keep them up to the level of other schools. It is a feature of the whole bad system that parents are put under intolerable pressure to try to find an escape route up the ladder in some way. This is most undesirable.
I welcome the Bill. One of the most important things we can do as a Government is to try to get away from the present pernicious system of education and into a more egalitarian system. One of our weaknesses as a nation is a lack of social equality. In our big cities today social segregation is getting worse, not better. Communities are living more and more isolated from each other. This is a major explanation of our failures in labour relations and leadership. I was a little shocked by the idea in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Buchanan) that because some schools have roughs in them all the other children should clear out, leaving the schools for roughs in those areas. This approach is deplorable. We wish to integrate our communities. We want understanding and affection between our classes and to see normal relations within our communities. This will be achieved only by starting at the bottom with a properly integrated system of education.

6.55 p.m.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, and shall try to be very brief.
My party is committed to the principle of comprehensive education. It is against the branding of children as failures at the age of 11 or 12, and claims that comprehensive education is an old Scottish idea. In introducing it we are reverting to a Scottish tradition.
I was at a comprehensive school. Children were not put into a different building at the age of 12, but there were


different subjects and a good deal of to-ing and fro-ing, instead of the only 1 per cent. who are upgraded at present from junior secondary to senior in Glasgow.
In respect of junior secondary schools, at present parents have a feeling of "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". Some parents are suffering nervous breakdowns as a result of the situation, and even some children at the fear of being branded as failures. This is intolerable. For these reasons, and in line with Scottish traditions, my party supports comprehensive education.
The taxpayer should not pay for the selection of some at the expense of others. I wish here to attack the logic of both sides. The Conservative Front Bench relies for support on the provision in the United Nations Charter which gives parents a right of choice. I agree that parents should have that right, but only if they pay for it. The State has no choice; it must provide the education. Parents can have a choice to opt out, but the corollary must be that with the choice goes payment. Anyone who looks to the United Nations for an umbrella for his attitude is misreading the Charter's provisions.
The ability to choose leaves independent schools, which fulfil a useful function that no one has mentioned which educationists are pleased about, and they admit this. Experiments were carried on at new ideal schools, for example, of A. S. Neill and of Kilwharity. Views on schooling have been imported from Germany and other places. We are not of the view that we cannot learn from new ideas. Sometimes such schools must be on an experimental basis, with willing parents, for the ideas to be introduced, because the State must sometimes proceed more cannily before sweeping away accepted ideas in education. This, perhaps, justifies the independent schools.
I must also attack the logic of the Government's position, because if we are to abolish the choice resulting in a few having selection for their children at the expense of others why are we doing it only in relation to those cases where the ratepayers must pay, and not where the taxpayers must pay? This is not logical.
My party believes that the introduction of comprehensive education should be done over a period of years. The Gov-

ernment are stating the period in which this is to be done. I sympathise with their problem. They must state a period, and this is a courageous action. But we do not have the buildings and the teachers for the range of comprehensive education at its best—as I have heard it explained by a great exponent, Mr. Christie—for introduction on the date the Government have set. There will be a great deal of chaos. One cause of unrest is that parents do not know where their children will be; they want to know what building they will be in. If the children are now in a building in which they are happy and are to be transferred to another which they cannot see because the new building is not built and if they see only the existing old buildings the parents are worried. This happens a great deal in my constituency. People are worried about the building situation. The date set will create chaos, though I admit the courage of the legislation.
In Denmark, when a similar system was introduced, the independent schools were left alone. But the State schools became so good and had such good facilities that, in effect, they became the schools to which everyone wanted their children to go. But the process was done over a period of years, and in Scotland, too, a period of years is essential to make the system work.
I do not know whether I am correct in what I am about to say, since I have not had time to check, but if a regulation under Clause 1 is to relate also to the size of classes, then we should most certainly like to see such a regulation enforced. If it could be enforced, teachers' attitudes to the difficulties of their job would also be greatly alleviated.

Clause 2 deals with the provision of museums by education authorities. I think that we should consider the fundamental ability of children to concentrate for such a long day. I believe that an academic morning is long enough and that we could learn from France in our attitude to the school day. The afternoon could well be spent in a different way—by civic visits of all kinds, for example, on a far greater scale than is the case now. These "extras" of yesterday are part of the bread and butter of many schools today but not of all, and visits to museums are certainly popular


with the children. I would most certainly support cultural appreciation, sport and civic visits of all kinds in the afternoons.

This, too, would help to make teaching more attractive and would solve many problems. It would enhance the status of teachers to a higher level—the French have a higher level—make their lives easier, and so attract more recruits to the profession. This is a rather fundamental view, and I must admit that I have never had any support for it from any of the professional bodies. But at least Clause 2 shows that there is an awareness of the cultural activities which children want to engage in, and I hope that it will be widely accepted by education authorities.

Clause 4 deals with the standards of premises. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can give an assurance about the speed with which the levelling up of buildings which lack fundamental equipment is to be done. In Calder Street School, in my constituency, there is no gymnasium and the children get their exercise only by the kindness of the Miners' Institute nearby. More and more schools are having swimming pools. This kind of thing is an essential and not a luxury.

Under Clause 7 there is to be a restriction of the right of appeal. I ask the Secretary of State to keep the right of appeal to himself until comprehensive education is introduced everywhere. He provides the full right of appeal to him in the case of handicapped children, in Clause 11, and I think that it would be reasonable for him to keep the right of appeal in general until the transfer to comprehensive education has been accomplished.

In Clause 11, I hope that the word "parent" in regard to the right of appeal in the new Section 66D means any parent—mother or father—and not just the legal guardian.

If the aim of Clause 12 is to leave more control over schools to the schools themselves, I am in favour of it. But I should like clarification. The phrase is, "to cause inspection". Inspection has been accepted in good faith as part of the normal supervisory process. But this is now to be permissive. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell us how the Secretary of State is likely to exercise

his power to cause inspection. One can imagine the distress of a school head if he felt that he had been singled out for a special reason for an inspection.

I turn briefly to finance. My party thinks that the burden of providing education facilities is too great for some areas of ratepayers to maintain. It is our policy to transfer the financing of education to the central Government—but only when the central Government is situated in Scotland, I hasten to add.

The proposed new Section 81 in Clause 16 deals with the central institutions. I believe that the Secretary of State, in his opening speech, gave an assurance regarding the regulations, saying that they would not be made before existing bodies were fully consulted. Is it possible to write that assurance into the Bill? Some of these bodies represent very broad sections of their cities. I can vouch for this from experience of the Scottish College of Commerce—later the Royal Scottish College of Commerce—which is now part of the University of Strathelyde. The governing body represented wide interests in the City. Such a body should certainly have the right of consultation.

I turn to the question of dismissal, a very tragic situation. I understand that the number of unregistered teachers is about 800 and that the number is greater than the number of those who are unqualified but conditionally registered. A perplexed parent, at one of the many meetings held about this matter, asked whether registered teachers—qualified teachers—could not be kept and the unqualified teachers allowed to go if there was such an impasse over the matter. I am sure that the House will understand that parent's perplexity. He was suggesting an apparently simple solution.

As a member of one profession, I understand why a profession wants to have a regulating body. In my profession, the governing body is controlled by practising lawyers. This is the heart of the trouble with the G.T.C. In the opening remarks of the Secretary of State for Scotland he exorted us to make constructive criticisms, and so I intend to make a constructive proposal about the composition of the Council. I was impressed by the fact that, although the Wheatley Report recommended six appointees for the Secretary of State, this has been


brought down to four, and I am happy to leave that number there. I suggest that the remaining members of the Council should be nominated as follows: local authorities, three; universities, three; college of education principals, three; directors of education, one; governors of secretarial institutions, one; churches, two; secondary school heads, three; primary school heads, three; further education principals remaining, one; secondary school teachers, nine; primary school teachers, nine; further education teachers, one; college of education teachers, one.

That is my constructive proposal. I do not know whether in detail it would satisfy the teachers. It would create the situation in which practising teachers would be in a different position. One would expect that at least some of the headmasters and others from different types of educational bodies would be likely to vote with practising teachers on some issues. Such a Council would enhance the status of the profession. Certainly the practising members of the profession should have the biggest say. That is fundamental.

Like other hon. Members, I have received many representations. They have been from parents and teachers. One headmaster—the headmaster of Holy Cross School—who consulted me had not registered at the end of December. Many teachers have written to me because they sympathise with those who have taken their stand on principle. I have received two petitions. One is from Lossiemouth High School and is signed by 32 members of the staff. It expresses sympathy with those who have refused to register. The other petition is from Coltness High School, but this was a copy and I suppose that the original has been sent to its Member of Parliament.

The strongest argument against those who have refused to register is that they are a minority, but a minority is important when it stands on principle. Again, this minority is merely the tip of the iceberg.

A study of Parliamentary Questions and Answers about those who have registered, when they registered and when they paid the £1 would convince anyone with an open mind of the great reluctance of vast numbers of teachers to register. [Interruption.] I do not believe that it would be fair to teachers to suggest that

the motive was that they would not pay the £1.

There are some who argue that teachers should get in and change the organisation from within. How can eight out of 44 do this? Even if one adds the likely support of other educational representatives, they still would not be in the majority. Even to go to the proposed representation that I have given, of 18 out of 44, they would still need the support of some of their brethren representing educational institutes or headmasters. Once a complex machinery governing a professional body is set up, I know, from my own experience in the legal profession, that it is very hard to change it.

Unless there is a suspension of the dismissals for a period bitterness will result. I hope that we shall hear that there will be such a suspension, and that on Monday we shall not have worsened this extraordinary shortage of teachers, which is already bad. In parts of Lanarkshire we are to lose the services of 800 qualified teachers. Many of them have mortgages, wives and children, and it must be a burning matter for them to do this. The bitterness is the important thing. Even if one disagrees about the position of these teachers, their colleagues will feel bitter in sympathy. New entrants will be discouraged from entering the profession at a time when we should be encouraging them. The training colleges have held meetings of protest. Here is a situation of bitterness that could be avoided.

The Bill introduces new regulations, and regulations do not always deal with the realities of the situation. Here the realities of the situation are that too many children are not being offered the variety of subjects that could be offered if there were more qualified teachers. I suggest that we should rethink our educational system to make the best use of the teachers that we have.

I make my personal declaration, as many others have done. I sent my eldest child to the local school. He was three weeks too young and there was the utmost difficulty in having him accepted. After nine months I was suddenly told that he would have to lose a year because he was needed to fill up the next class. We had a fight and won it. At the end of the year we were told "Do not


think that you are getting away with this because we can keep him back for one year at any review". With that sort of threat I took him away. I had not entered the rat-race of the fee-paying schools, I had not put his name down, and we had to send him to an independent school, which is expensive.

My second child goes to a nearby school, where she will not be chucked out at 11. It takes all the children from round about, and it is one of the schools which I think will be affected by this proposal. If it is affected and made into a comprehensive school I shall be very pleased. I hope that in future my son will be able to get back into the comprehensive system.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Alex Eadie: Any reasonable person listening to this debate would agree with the case made out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I take issue with the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble). He displayed a brochure and said that one of the main attractions for industrialists entering Scotland was the fee-paying schools. I was astonished at that, because I can tell him that one of the attractions for industrialists bringing in labour, particularly from England, is that with areas of comprehensive education in Scotland, parent do not have to worry about their child passing the 11-plus. There are many areas, my own is a good example, which have been successful in attracting industry because they have a proper system of comprehensive education which has been of great assistance to those coming from England.
When I was chairman of the Fife Education Committee, I inspected the Leicestershire experiment. I took part in discussions in Leicestershire and discovered that there was an element of selection. There may have been the ability to take a high school education, there may have been the I.Q. to go on, but because in that particular year there was not a sufficient number of places a person did not go on. Such a situation does not arise in the Scottish areas to which I have referred. It is rather strange that some hon. Members opposite should talk of education and the value

of the fee-paying schools in Scotland. I do not say this pugnaciously, but it is a fact that if we are to talk about education from experience, as someone who was educated in a comprehensive school, as someone who was an administrator for quite a number of years in Scottish education, there is more experience on this side of the House than there is opposite.

Mr. Brewis: Does the hon. Gentleman not think that this is a dangerous argument? It might be said that one should not talk about Scottish prisons unless one had been educated in such a prison.

Mr. Eadie: I do not get the significance of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. He is obviously poverty-stricken if he has to introduce such a remark as a debating point when discussing education. We are really arguing about the pool of ability. There is such a pool, but the fundamental difference between the two sides of the House is that we do not believe that the pool has ever been plumbed in depth.
One cannot calculate that the pool of ability means that 65 per cent. of the population must be written off and sent to some form of junior education while the remaining 35 per cent. should go to a higher form of education. As chairman of my own education authority I recall that we proved that to be absolute nonsense. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) should remember this when he gives us statistics about passes in State education and in fee-paying education. He did not mention the matter of presentations, which is very important.
When we operated a comprehensive form of education in Fife we increased "O" level passes to 42 per cent. and 43 per cent. We increased the number of people going on to take higher examinations, the numbers in teacher training colleges, who would, under the old system have been at the bottom of the predetermined pool of ability. Hon. Gentlemen are trying to argue the Kingsley Amis argument, that more shall be worse. We are not prepared to accept that.
It is said that parents wish to make a contribution to education. There is nothing to stop parents from doing that. That is a feeble argument. As someone


who has been associated with education for many years, and who is one of the few members of the Scottish Council for Educational Research, I say that I have no antipathy towards parents who send their children to fee-paying schools. My wish is that when we have a proper system of non-fee-paying education, such people will voice concern about educational opportunities. Such parents within a proper system of education will be an insurance policy to ensure that the standards of State education are of the highest possible.
I was surprised that the hon. Lady the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) gave examples from Denmark. I wish that she would pay attention to areas in Scotland where we have done away with fee-paying schools, and the people concerned would not go back to the fee-paying system. If she goes to Ayrshire, Fife or Midlothian, she will find parents who would not go back to the fee-paying system.

Mrs. Ewing: I gave the example of Denmark only to illustrate a country which had had the courage to say that there should be State schools or independent schools. Denmark has done it so well over a period that independent schools have withered away. I am not disagreeing with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Eadie: That is precisely what I am saying. I still make the point—and it may be a debating point—that we do not have to go to Denmark for examples. We can go to Scotland and talk to people who speak the same language and they will tell us their experience. If the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) were present, he could tell us about what has happened in the university town of St. Andrews. In the town of Cupar, where we have the Bell Baxter school, there was a change from the fee-paying system to a comprehensive system of education. The parents would never go back to the fee-paying system. Therefore, to say that the abolition of fee-paying schools with the abolition of selectivity will endanger education is nonsense. The argument does not stand up to examination.
It is said that when were are discussing any subject we should always listen to people with expertise in it. Sometimes people even talk about a businessmen's Government. I wish to refer to

what the Educational Institute for Scotland has to say. I know that on the night that the representatives of the Educational Institute met a group of Labour Members in the House they met the Conservative group as well. The Institute produced a paper. I do not wish to read it out, but it is a devastating argument against fee-paying schools. It considers that the existence of fee-paying schools
gives rise to social injustices and sometimes over-rated educational privilege. It should be possible to abolish fees and integrate such schools into the general system in a variety of ways".
The case has been made on this side of the House for implementing the Bill. I have a number of comments which I should like to make, but I will leave them for the Committee stage. Any neutral person listening to this debate, and even perhaps the Press, which talked about the tremendous onslaught which would be made by the Opposition today, will agree that right hon. and hon. Members opposite are in default in their case and that we can go ahead with the abolition of fee-paying schools in Scotland.

7.25 p.m.

Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie: This has been an interesting and useful debate. Although I do not agree with the Bill in every detail, it has a lot to commend it. I welcome in particular the provision made for handicapped children. Good work has been done in the past by the voluntary organisations. However, voluntary organisations should not be required to do all this work in this day and age, much though we wish to encourage voluntary effort. Every opportunity should be taken by education authorities to make the fullest use of the Bill for the benefit of handicapped children. I know from experience in education that parents are sometimes reluctant to take advantage of the benefits open to their children. They feel that in the past the bright pupil has been given priority and they have a certain inferiority complex when they have a child who is backward. We should do everything possible to get rid of this feeling among parents.
Fee-paying schools constitute a controversial matter. I understand the point of view of parents who wish to send their children to fee-paying schools, even though I do not agree with it. They feel that if their children attend such


schools they will have a better chance in life and that greater opportunities will be open to them. I do not know how right they are. On the other hand, this has the effect of dividing pupils into categories. Other members of the community cannot afford to pay fees, and they feel that they are at a distinct disadvantage.
Throughout my life I have done my best to prevent class distinction. I have no axe to grind in this matter. There are strong arguments against fee-paying schools. Every hon. Member would wish all pupils to have the best opportunities possible. With the best will in the world, it is difficult to justify a situation which exists chiefly in the prosperous areas of Glasgow and Edinburgh. There are no fee-paying schools in my constituency—and thank goodness for that. It would have made very difficult my work during my term as convener of the education authority if there had been fee-paying schools in my constituency. Some hon. Members said that they thought that the day was coming when fee-paying schools would have to be ended. If so, this may be as good a time as any, when the Bill is going through Parliament, to end them. I cannot see my way to support the Opposition's Motion.
There is also the burning question of the General Teaching Council, and I find it difficult to follow the attitude of some members of the profession. The Council was set up for the benefit of the teachers and to raise the status of the profession, and I understood that the teachers were 100 per cent. behind the General Council. It is disappointing to find this division of opinion within the profession. If the Secretary of State can give an assurance that the position will be reviewed at the earliest possible date, that assurance should allay the fears of many teachers who are still unwilling to sign because they have grievances on the general set-up of the Council. By signing up those teachers would have an opportunity within the Council to improve the Council and so benefit the status of the profession. It will be very sad if teachers are sacked, and sadder still if they are prepared to sacrifice their life's work and the interests of the children rather than to sign.
I am a member of a small party; very often I find myself in a minority within that party, and I have every respect for the views of minorities. Those teachers who have not so far signed should not be charged with inconsistency if an increase of knowledge enables them to change their minds. I have said this in my own constituency where there are still half a dozen who have not signed, and I have impressed upon them that it would be in their best interests to do so.

Mr. Rankin: Will the hon. Gentleman take a step further and suggest a block signature of those who are now prepared to be dismissed, if the signature can be justified?

Mr. Mackenzie: I hope that the Secretary of State will take note of that remark. I sincerely hope that there will be no sackings, and that both parties can come together so that there will be no scar upon the profession or upon the Education Department.
I wish briefly to mention the speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Spring-burn (Mr. Buchanan). I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman was here when the speech was made—

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: It was a good speech.

Mr. Mackenzie: It was to me rather shocking. He said that education in Glasgow is deteriorating rapidly; punctuation, grammar and handwriting are all deteriorating. Has this change come about in the last few years? I was for a long time intimately connected with education when this sort of thing would not have been tolerated. According to the speech of the hon. Member for Springburn, things have deteriorated very rapidly, and this is something that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues should consider seriously. It is past a joke if this is the position.

7.35 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I am always pleased to follow the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie). I am in complete agreement with many of the points which he made. I wish I could say that about the gist of the speech of the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble). It


is a great pity when we present an important Bill on Scottish education that the one point of criticism that finds its way into a Motion on the Order Paper is this single item of fee paying in Scottish schools. I would have thought that there were other matters of such paramount importance in Scottish education that the Opposition would have tried to isolate those of first-rate importance and dealt with them in the debate today.
I understand that Renfrewshire has taken the decision on its own, before the passing of the Bill, that at the end of this academic year it will abolish fee paying in its schools. This leaves only the city of Glasgow and the city of Edinburgh where there will be local education authority fee-paying secondary schools. One of the main reasons for supporting the continuation of those fee-paying schools given by the right hon. Member for Argyll was that they catered for the top stratum of intellect. What is happening to the top stratum of intellect all over the rest of Scotland, in Lanarkshire, in the North represented by the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty? In every area with the exception of Glasgow and Edinburgh we should be weeping tears about the terrible neglect of this top stratum of our intellect.

Mr. Noble: The right hon. Lady is quoting me entirely out of context, as she will see when she reads HANSARD tomorrow. I did not say that this top stratum came only from the fee-paying schools. I suggested that the fee-paying schools, the grant-aided schools and the independent schools all had an important part in this.

Miss Herbison: The right hon. Gentleman is corroborating that they all play a part, and I hope that later we shall deal with the grant-aided schools and the independent schools, but in this Bill we are dealing only with local education authority fee-paying schools. I say to the right hon. Member that in ordinary non-fee-paying secondary schools, in Glasgow and in Edinburgh, apart from the rest of Scotland, we have young men and women whose intellect is as high as that of those in fee-paying schools, and the sooner the Opposition get to know what Scottish education has always been about the better it will be.
Many of the other points which I meant to make have been dealt with in what I thought was a devastating speech against the Motion, a devastating speech in favour of what the Secretary of State wants to do with these local education authority schools, made by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), and I congratulate him on the clear way in which he put the case. When most parents read his speech, they will realise that what is proposed in the Bill is good for all our children and for Scottish education generally.
It may be that I am the only hon. Member who has taught in one of these local education authority fee-paying schools where it is proposed to abolish fees. I taught for five years at Allan Glen's Boys' School, and they were five very happy years for me. It is a first-rate school, but when I was there it was what might almost be called a comprehensive school in that the range of ability of pupils was comprehensive. There were two pre-secondary classes. In them there were some children of high intelligence. There were others who had been in ordinary primary schools in Glasgow whose parents realised when their children reached ten years of age that they would never make the necessary grade to get into one of our free senior secondary schools. As a result, they bought them places in Allan Glen's primary classes because they knew that, when it came to a decision about secondary education, they would automatically obtain a place in the secondary school. I do not know the position obtaining at Allan Glen's Boys' School today, since there are no longer primary classes, but the result then was that boys who would never have entered a six-year senior secondary school where no fees were charged attended Allan Glen's School. The intelligence quotient of many of them was so low that they had no second language, either Latin or French, but they got a great deal from that school because it was one of the best examples of comprehensive education in terms of the ranges of ability for which it catered.
But, clearly, schools such as Allan Glen's present in our education system the severe disabilities which were highlighted in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian, and I have no intention of saying any more on that subject, although


I wanted to make a strong case for comprehensive education, in which I believe very deeply.
I turn now to another matter which is causing great concern to Scottish parents. Many of them wonder, in a country where there is a shortage of teachers, what the future holds for the education of their children if certain teachers either strike or are sacked. In this debate, it is important to get the picture in proper perspective, and I want to try to do that.
Only a very small minority of teachers have refused to register with the General Teaching Council. It was the Tory Government who set up the Wheatley Committee, which reported in 1963. Its report to the then Tory Secretary of State was unanimous, and that fact ought not to be forgotten. It was signed by all the members of the Committee, amongst whom was the President of the Scottish Schoolmasters Association. He served on that Committee and listened to all its discussions. As far as we can learn, he had no hesitation in signing that Report with the other members of the Committee.
Believing that it would enhance the status of teachers, the Labour Government decided to act speedily on the Committee's recommendations. The result was the Teaching Council (Scotland) Act, 1965. It is important that parents should know that that legislation brought in by the Labour Government closely followed the recommendations of the Wheatley Committee's Report.
In paragraph 171 we find these words:
We envisage that by legislative act registration will effectively replace certification. We think it desirable, therefore, to suggest that all existing certificated teachers will have to register with the Council, from a date determined by it, if they wish to continue to be entitled to the advantages of certification. It will not be enough for them to assume that having once been certificated they need take no further steps to maintain their position…Registration should be obligatory on all teachers who wish to claim entitlement to the benefits conferred by certificated status.
There are no ifs or buts. There is a clear recommendation that registration should be compulsory.
I am glad that the vast majority of Scottish teachers have registered. However,

the Scottish Schoolmasters Association advised its members very strongly not to register. In spite of that, many members of the Association have registered. I want to stress again that the President of the Association was a member of the Wheatley Committee. Despite that, we have had what I can only describe as the most intemperate propaganda from the Association in addition to the most scurrilous attacks on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I resent those very much. I do not blame the General Secretary of the Association, Mr. McClement, whom I have known for a long time. He was Secretary of the Police Federation, and when I was at the Scottish Office one of my responsibilities was for police in Scotland. What is more, when I did Front Bench duty as an Opposition hon. Member, I had many close consultations with him. I found him to be a most reasonable man. I suspect that the kind of letters that we receive from him today reflect the intemperate feelings and attitudes of the Council that he represents.

Mr. James Hamilton: My right hon. Friend has made reference to the Council of the S.S.A. In the industrial world it would be called the Association's executive. If present information is to be believed, we understand that 50 per cent. of that executive have already registered.

Miss Herbison: If over 50 per cent. of the executive registered, it is strange that it should be advising its rank and file members not to register. But, again, it seems that the S.S.A. is taking strong exception to the composition of the General Teaching Council. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) dealt with this matter. She gave us the kind of composition that she would like to see. It was evident from her speech today—[Interruption.] I make no complaint that the hon. Lady is not here, because she has been in the House for most of the day. Her speech today and the quotations from what she said in the Hamilton Advertiser at the weekend all give comfort to the Scottish Schoolmasters Association. It seems clear that if it goes along the lines suggested by the hon. Lady we shall indeed have great difficulties on our hands.
The composition of the General Teaching Council, however, is the same


as that recommended by the Wheatley Committee. It seems wrong now to have this kind of intemperate attack on both the Council and the Secretary of Slate when every attempt has been made to get the General Teaching Council in line with the recommendations of the important Wheatley Committee.
The hon. Lady took the same line as the Scottish Schoolmasters Association. It seems that whenever a teacher gets promotion and becomes a headmaster he can no longer talk for or represent teachers. It seems from what has been said by the hon. Lady and the Scottish Schoolmasters Association that the moment a man becomes a headmaster he is completely divorced from the problems of the general teachers of the country. I may tell the hon. Lady that in her constituency a headmaster of a school of over 1,000 pupils for about two years has had to teach chemistry to the fifth and sixth forms for presentation for the higher leaving certificate. That man is fully aware of the problems being faced by teachers at the present time. Not only that, but those who become headmasters have great knowledge of their profession and its problems. Far from criticising those who are on the General Teaching Council, the S.S.A. really should regard it as a matter of supreme importance that the body of teachers is well represented.
I am not suggesting that the balance of interest on the General Teaching Council is perfect. It may not be. It may be that we should have one headmaster fewer and one teacher—I will not say practising teacher, because some headmasters are still practising teachers—more. I do not know. It is not for me to suggest what changes ought to be or should be made. There has been a big enough hullabaloo when the Secretary of State has followed the Wheatley Committee's suggestions without my suggesting in detail what changes might be made. But, if there is an imbalance, it is not so great as to threaten the education of our children by strike action, as the Scottish Schoolmasters Association is doing.
It is suggested that we should have a referendum to find out—

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Hear, hear.

Miss Herbison: I ask the hon. Gentleman who says "Hear, hear" what kind of Government is he asking for. What he is suggesting—and I know he supports a referendum—is that where we get a small minority of dissidents against a law—because this is a law; this is legislation—the Government should immediately rush and hold a referendum. That would be the very antithesis of good government. The Secretary of State made it clear today, but he has made it clear long before today, that he is willing to hold an early review on this matter. I understand that the General Teaching Council met yesterday and again made it very clear that it was willing to support the Secretary of State in an early review. It seems to me that, with the promise that the Secretary of State made some time ago and the backing that came from the General Teaching Council yesterday, there can now be no legitimate reason for any member of the teaching profession to refrain from registering with the General Teaching Council. Any member of this House who was a party to this legislation, who knows the whole case as I do and who puts forward any other case today, must accept the responsibility, along with those teachers who may continue to refuse to register, of doing the gravest damage to the education of our children, particularly to those of our children facing their O-levels or their higher certificates in March this year. I hope that the hon. Gentleman who is to wind up for the Opposition will deal with this in a most responsible manner.
Before I sit down, I beg those teachers who have not registered to register immediately. Once they are inside, with this promise of a review by the Secretary of State backed by the General Teaching Council, there may be some chance, if there is an imbalance, of getting that imbalance corrected.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: I am delighted to be following the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison). In the past we have often crossed swords, and I hope I shall be able to do that adequately polemically tonight.
What seems to be wrong with education in Scotland is not that it is socially divisive or that it splits the pupils into


the privileged and unprivileged, but simply lack of money. That is why the classes are large, the teachers are few, and too many schools are still slums. Provide more cash and all these problems will be solved. Instead, the Secretary of State in the Bill is actually reducing the flow of money into education. He is preventing parents making any contribution when he should be doing the very opposite and encouraging them to spend more lavishly, because that is the only way to get rising standards in education. It has been proved conclusively that it cannot be done through taxation alone. So, instead of abolishing the fee-paying principle, the Secretary of State, if he wishes to get higher standards, should, if anything, be extending it. However, the right hon. Gentleman does not do that, because the new god in education is not a high standard—perhaps in a few schools, for the rest to aim at—but comprehensiveness and never mind about the standards. This may well be a false god. We do not know. An American educationist, writing in the Glasgow Herald on 1st November, thought that it was a false god and said:
You"—
that is, the people in this country—
should stop quarrelling with educational excellence merely because everybody cannot have it right now.
Surely we would be wise to accept that warning. He may be right or the Secretary of State may be right, but we do not know, and before putting our money on an entirely new and untrained horse, surely we should see how it operates in practice. Even the dumbest punter would do that.
After all, there is no reason why these two systems should not exist side by side. Have the comprehensives in the new towns which are going up all over Scotland, and compare the end product, both educationally and socially, with the fee-paying schools, but do not destroy for the sake of what may be only a passing fashion in education schools which have existed not just for generations but for centuries—800 years in the case of Glasgow High School—and which have contributed men of the highest calibre to the nation. I would particularly urge the Secretary of State not to do this when the need for an élite is perhaps

greater than ever before if Scotland is to keep her place in the forefront of progress.
We have heard from the Scottish Nationalist Member that her party is behind this move to abolish what is unique in Scottish education and make it conform more nearly to the English pattern, but surely this enthusiasm of the Nationalist Member is enough to make the Secretary of State pause and think again, particularly when the local authorities most affected are dead against the scheme because they realise, quite apart from the educational implications, that it will mean a further burden on the rates and also an unnecessary expenditure on enlarging local secondary schools to take those at the present fee-paying schools. In Hillhead High School, for example, 75 per cent. of the pupils come from an area outside that served by the school, so that will mean a good deal of building.
Another point is that the right hon. Gentleman knows how much damage has been done to Scotland's image by the lack of variety in housing, for which, I am sorry to say, the egalitarian outlook of his own party is very much to blame. He knows how difficult it is, because of this image, to get people to move to Scotland. The reluctance of the Post Office to move was an example. Thus, when we in Scotland have something rather better than the English have, when there is more variety and greater choice between the completely independent school and the completely State school, I urge him seriously, even at this late stage, to hold his hand—

Mr. Archie Manuel: Mr. Archie Manuel (Central Ayrshire) rose—

Mr. Galbraith: No, I will not give way to the hon. Member. I have done that often in my life, but I will not do so tonight, purely because of the time; it would not be fair to other hon. Members.
After all, if the aim of the Bill is to remove social divisiveness, which I do not believe really exists, the substitution of the area school for the fee-paying school will surely only make matters worse. Those children who live in a professional, middle-class district, will go to a professional, middle-class area school, while those who live in a working-class district will go to a working-class area school.


Thus, in the place of the existing cross-fertilisation, although it is, admittedly, limited, there will be these two rigid ghettoes, with no inter-communication. Is this what the right hon. Gentleman really wants, so that the only way that a parent can choose a school is to change his home? Is seems to me absolutely crazy and also grossly unfair.
The Bill also seeks to make things easier for the handicapped child, and rightly so, but why should the abler child be made to suffer, which is what will happen? For unless a child is sufficiently fortunate to live in a middle-class area, where there is a tradition of staying on longer at school, he will be under tremendous pressure from the example of his fellow working-class pupils to leave school as soon as possible. That is what will happen to the pupil from a working class area. Snobbery and wealth simply do not enter into it. The division lies not between the rich and the poor, between the snobbish and the egalitarian, but between those who regard education as valuable and those who do not.
With fees in Glasgow at a maximum of £23 a year, there is scarcely a family, if it feels strongly enough, which could not afford a fee-paying school. Even if there were some slight sacrifice, that would be to the good. The trouble today—I know that hon. Gentlemen opposite will not like this, but it is my philosophy, and I am therefore telling them—is that there is so much doled out that people do not value it in the same way as they would if they had striven for it with personal effort. So they do not impart to their children a love and appreciation of learning. Because the majority do not do this, and are not willing to make this very slight effort to send their children to a fee-paying school, is that any reason why the minority who wish to make that sacrifice, should, contrary to the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, be prevented from doing the most natural thing in the world and making efforts on behalf of their children?
It is argued that to allow this is unfair to the children whose parents will not make the effort or do not know about the opportunity. This is the basis of the argument of the party opposite. This is the philosophy behind Estate Duty and the projected wealth tax. A child must not benefit from the efforts of his parents.

It is the philosophy now being applied to this Bill—denying parents the right to make sacrifices and do the best that they can for their children.
Where will it end, this wicked and unnatural philosophy espoused by the party opposite? If it is wrong for parents to be allowed to strive for their children's education at school, what about bringing them up at home? Is it not unfair that some parents take more trouble than others, and should not all children, therefore be removed to the care of an impartial and benevolent State at birth so that all can get the same treatment?

Mr. Malcolm Macmillan: Mr. Malcolm Macmillan (Western Isles) rose—

Mr. Galbraith: No, the hon. Member must not tempt me: "Get thee behind me." I have often given way in the past and I intend to continue to do so, but not tonight.
This is a dangerous road which the party opposite are treading. In the end, even the inheritence of genes may be regarded as unfair. Marriage for creative purposes may be banned and we shall be in the test tube era of Huxley's "Brave New World".—[Laughter.] I expected hon. Members opposite to laugh at that. They may think that I am exaggerating, but this is the logical conclusion of what they now propose—taking away a parent's right to do the best that he can for his child just because every parent is not willing to do the same thing, and it would be a very foolhardy man who would be sure that this could not happen here.
I know that this is far from the intentions of the Secretary of State, but the road to hell is said to be paved with good intentions. Whatever the future may hold, there is no doubt about the intense feeling of frustration which grips people today, because less and less choice is left to improve their lot and more and more depends on the "Do-goodism" of the State, represented by the party opposite. We talk a great deal about incentives and here is another incentive gone. For once the Bill is law, if a man wants better education for his children, he will have to persuade 50 million people to submit to extra taxaation to pay for it, instead of going out, as he can today, and buying what he wants at a fee-paying school for the


price of a couple of packets of cigarettes a week. That is the way to get progress into education, to get money into it and consequently to improve standards. That is what the Secretary of State should be encouraging.
If he cuts off, as he is doing by the Bill, the supply of parental interest and financial aid, not only education but the whole quality of life will suffer and be poorer because another door to individual initiative of the most natural kind will have been closed. I urge the right hon. Gentleman not to do that because if he does it will bring nearer the day, already alarmingly clear on the horizon, when, figuratively and literally, "to go to pot" will be about the only thing left to work for.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: I have heard the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) and his father make many polemical and histrionic speeches. The one just made by the hon. Gentleman must be the worst of them all. For a young man, an ex-teacher, to proclaim the frightful philosophy which he has just enunciated is shameful.
The hon. Gentleman began by arguing that more money is the answer to our problems. He went on to speak against the provision of more money for additional educational services. He argued that pressure to leave school early will be brought to bear on children already in fee-paying or selective schools if the present system is broken down and other children are allowed in. Is he aware that his views are contrary to facts supplied by the Scottish Education Department? More and more boys and girls above the ages of 15 and 16 are staying on at school voluntarily. That is one reason why I welcome the Bill, particularly since the fee-paying concept is an anachronism.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite are living in the past. They are not aware of modern trends in education and the desire of young people to stay at school, including those who live in what we still describe as working-class areas, whether that term be applied to Easterhouse or North Kelvinside. They are staying on longer and we must face up to this problem.

Despite these trends, hon. Gentlemen opposite like the hon. Member for Hill-head prefer to live in cloud-cuckoo-land.
I say that because the principle of fee-paying is not involved in this issue. Even Glasgow Education Committee's Convenor—that Committee is now Tory-controlled—has said that the principle of fee-paying does not arise. Perhaps the pressure on Progressives to use the word "Conservative" is causing much of the difference. I suspect that the attitude of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Wright) will be found to coincide with what I am saying. We are concerned not with fee-paying but with selectivity. Let us agree once and for all that this business of fee-paying is an argument as dead as a dodo.
The hon. Member for Hillhead argued that we should build up an intellectual elite. It is interesting to note that the author of the Newsom Report commented, when speaking of secondary education:
We can't have an elite of eggheads"—
which is what the hon. Member for Hillhead wants—
unless you have working…with them an enormous number of skilled people. A race of eggheads, and serfs under them—that's economically barmy.
The argument does not even centre on the right of people to pay fees. The trouble is that those who hold views similar to those expressed by the hon. Member for Hillhead extend their philosophy beyond education and into health and other social spheres. This part of their overall policy would result in not only educational ghettos but medical ghettos and ghettos in other social services.
It is worth noting the increasing numbers of boys and girls staying on at school under the comprehensive system. I received some interesting figures last October in answer to a Parliamentary Question. They showed that the Education Department was surprised at the tremendous increase that had taken place. Whereas the 12 and 13 year-old group was staying on at school longer compared with previous years, 3 per cent. more of those in the 15 to 16 year-old group were staying on in 1968 compared with 1967. In that year 25·7 per cent. were staying on beyond 15 compared with 22 per cent. in the previous


year. These figures prove that whatever we do, the fee-paying system must go. The increasing number of children staying on must be catered for.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have argued in the past that local authorities should be given freedom to act. Are they aware that all authorities have decided—some perhaps rather reluctantly—on the comprehensive system? The most important factor to be borne in mind is the increasing number of boys and girls wishing to stay on at school longer.
Another aspect to be remembered is the argument that the selective process operates for gifted children, such as in schools like the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music. But local authorities do their best to see that particularly gifted boys and girls are given all possible encouragement.
It is argued that the problem of early leaving is non-existent in fee-paying schools, but I suggest that this is only a matter of degree and time. It is also argued that the character of a school derives from the right of selection. Can this argument be sustained in respect of, for example, Shawlands Academy? Is the atmosphere at Queen's Park School more or less desirable than in the Glasgow High School for Boys? What would hon. Gentlemen opposite say about Whitehill School, Bellahouston Academy or Hamilton Academy, all non fee-paying?
Much depends on the character and integrity of the headmaster and staff of each school in seeing that the right conditions and atmosphere prevail.
Another argument advanced in respect of selectivity is that the only privilege which such schools enjoy is the initial recruitment from the ranks of students and mature teachers living out with Glasgow who are willing to work in such schools and who might not otherwise be willing to accept posts in Glasgow. Why is this? Certainly it is not a question of salary. If a different salary were paid to them the other teachers would want to know the reason why. It is because such men have not the character to take up the challenge of education. It is much more pleasant and easy, as the life of professors in universities proves, when all the students have about the same intelligence quotient and no great display of skill is needed to bring that out.

Miss Harvie Anderson: Does the hon. Member and his hon. Friends believe that as a result of this Bill there will be social equality and academic equality in Eastwood and Easterhouse under the comprehensive system?

Mr. Hannan: I am arguing that while selectivity is confined to certain schools and areas which stretch from the centre of the city out to the west, no such schools which practice selectivity are found in the north and south. Schools, other than selective schools, are thus deprived of the leadership and the example of young people creamed off. The general population are thereby losing.
In education debates which I have taken part in from 1956 onwards, I have urged that we have laid too much emphasis on facilities for the top 15 per cent. and not enough on the remaining 85 per cent. of our school population many of whom because of the handicap of social background or home life, have not had the same opportunity. We can increase the much desired pool of educated people only from that 85 per cent. We should be devoting more resources to these purposes.
Young boys and girls who have native ability in local authority schools will have a greater chance of coming to the top than there is for some of the other young people. One of the most important Reports, the Brunton Report, which this House accepted, urged continuity of education to eliminate the gap between age 15 and the entrance to some of the professions. It called for a special kind of teacher. If we are to do something for our young people, and for the country, we must look to this field.
There has been argument about the amount of money involved. The Bill says that it will cost £225,000, but a report in the Glasgow Herald stated that the convenor in Glasgow considered that it will cost something in excess of £200,000 in Glasgow alone. There is £60,000 to £70,000 for fees and an estimate of £80,000 for books. Apparently the Progressive Party in Glasgow had prepared plans to increase the fees by £130,000. Therefore, a projected income is a loss. Glasgow has 365 schools and the total for books is £375,000, but apparently the cost of books for seven fee-paying schools was about £80,000.


Something is wrong. Either the fee-paying schools have been paying in excess for books, or local authority schools have been parsimonious. The education convenor in Glasgow should look at this.
This Bill must be looked at as a whole. its other parts link with the general theme. I am glad to see in Clause 1 that not only is the question of fees dealt with, but a very important feature which I hope will be developed—nursery schools. The hon. Member for Hillhead alleged that many parents have no interest in their children's education facilities. Who are those parents? In the main, they are the product of the schools which I want to improve and they left school at 15 years of age. I also welcome the provision whereby local authorities will be required to have a single leaving date. Hon. Members opposite, when in Government before 1964, agreed that the school leaving age should be increased to 16. We want to do that, but in the absence of statutory provision this Bill goes as near as possible to achieving that ideal in practice. If there is one school leaving age it is hoped that in practice young people will stay at school as near as possible to age 16.
I commend what the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) said, and I hope that in a sensible way we can get together in Committee on a problem which we both want to solve. That is dealt with in Clause 11, which concerns the ascertainment and classification of handicapped children. For too long we have done nothing about this problem. I remember the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. Gordon Campbell) answering Questions on this subject in 1963–64, when I was perturbed about the information I had received about maladjusted children being in classes for mentally deficient children principally because of the lack of appropriate accommodation. The Government will have to face the problem of provision of adequate and proper accommodation for all the various groups involved.
I give my hon. Friend notice that in Committee some of us will want to pursue the question of provisions for further education. Hon. Members know about the activities of the Workers' Educational

Association, which has a wonderful record of voluntary service to Scottish education, achieved without the teaching grant which has been accepted as normal elsewhere. There is growing frustration amongst many voluntary workers. The lack of unpaid voluntary work of a high order is beginning to tell. I ask the Government to consider what extra help can be given.
I add my plea to that made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) that common-sense and reason will reassert themselves. I have been tempted to use intemperate language at the scurrilous attitude adopted by, in particular, one newspaper in Scotland. A minority of teachers have allowed their case to be exploited and distorted either for political ends or for journalistic ends. This has been done in an effort to have a kick at the Government instead of in an effort to enhance the progress of education and the status of teachers.
It is only too easy to suggest amendments and modifications. Anybody can trot out figures. What assurance can Parliament have that any other review or any other figures would at the end of the day command any more support from the teachers than the present proposals of the G.T.C., which are based on the Wheatley Report, which was itself agreed to by all three Parties?
It is no use anyone now saying that the GT.C. is an advisory body. The terms of reference of this body were known to the three teacher organisations. I profoundly regret that they have allowed their case to be exploited by opportunists of a journalistic or political calibre. I do not know whether any standards have to be attained in journalism. I hardly think so, in view of some of the stuff I have read.
In comparison with some other professions, the teaching profession has taken a big step towards self-government. The profession knew that it could not have complete independence. I regret the fact that a minority pursued a sectarian argument which has brought discredit upon the profession as a whole. Without regard to the feelings of parents or children, who will be in a highly nervous state in the next few months, a minority has been prepared to carry on a vendetta in the face of the facts.
I quite understand that there are criticisms, but the way for teachers to get the constitution of the G.T.C. altered is to get inside that body, given the promise of my right hon. Friend that a review will take place. I repeat my hope that common sense will reassert itself and that the words which Robert Burns used to describe students who go into universities—
They gang in stirks, and come oot asses"—
will no longer apply.

8.34 p.m.

Mr. Esmond Wright: First, I make two points in praise of the Secretary of State. I join in the good reception which has been given to that part of his proposals which relate to handicapped children, and I support him also in what he proposes regarding the central institutions, although I give warning that I shall want to look hard at this in Committee. Not only in Scotland but in Britain as a whole we must begin to think of the central institutions in terms of the measure of independence which universities and colleges have.
Now, having said some kind words at the outset, I turn to other aspects of the Bill, apart from the question of fee-paying schools, which give me concern. I am worried about the proposal for two leaving dates or, perhaps, ultimately a single leaving date. There is a danger here that we shall not be prepared for this change in terms of either school buildings or school teachers if we introduce it too quickly.
Also, at a time when there is great unrest among parents, for a reason to which I shall come, it is unwise to remove from parents the chance of having discussions with headmasters about the transfer of their children. Parents should be brought into consultation as often as possible, and it is a dangerous trend to limit this opportunity to the moment of transfer alone.
Before coming to the major issue before us, I have a word to say about the General Teaching Council. A good many comments have been made about the G.T.C. in this debate. In some ways, this issue is only marginally relevant to the wider question, but it worries all of us, especially people in Glasgow and, perhaps, in some measure, in Edinburgh as well. I should like to know from the

Under-Secretary of State in rather more specific terms than we have heard hitherto what his right hon. Friend meant when he spoke about an early review if enough bodies, associations and institutions approach him. How many, and by what date?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue—I am defending no one and no cause—my worry here is whether certain schools will not only lose staff next Monday but lose so many that they will have to close. I think particularly of Shaw-lands Academy. What I want to know from the Government—this may be the last chance before next Monday—is what advice, much less instruction, they have given to Glasgow Corporation, because upon that Corporation a dual and conflicting obligation is imposed—first, to provide education for all the children in the Glasgow area, and, second, to dismiss those teachers who have not registered. Among those teachers who have not registered are some—for instance, Shawlands Academy—of the most highly qualified in physics, chemistry, mathematics and, to a lesser degree, English. There is here a straight conflict of allegiance.
I have made various proposals, as have other hon. Members. I have suggested that the phrase "entitled to be registered" could be used by the convenor of Glasgow education committee as meaning, in effect, registered, although perhaps unwillingly, and, therefore, not dismissable. I have suggested also that, if there is a case for dismissal, the dismissal should be of one token victim and that there should then be an appeal to the Secretary of State, which would force the right hon. Gentleman to look at the case or, perhaps, take it to court. Various expedients of that kind are open.
There is still a chance, and only the Secretary of State has that chance, to avert catastrophe. I join with the voices which have been raised today, with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) and the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), in criticising and condemning any talk of strikes in any part of the teaching profession in Scotland. But my great fear is that there could be a break in the education system, a break affecting especially pupils who are taking O and


H level examinations. It is this worry which has led me to say what I have.
However, as I said, that immediate issue is only marginally relevant to the question before us. The central feature of this debate has, unfortunately, been obscured, as so often, by hon. Members opposite who have tried to make it a general debate on the wisdom or un-wisdom of comprehensive education. We have heard, for example, from the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), who referred far more often to Eton—perhaps because of the proximity of his hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell)—than he did any of our schools in Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman displayed an out-dated view of the situation in education.
In my view, there are three main grounds on which the Bill is at fault. We are not debating comprehensive education or even selectivity, although I want to come to that if there is time later. We are debating the wisdom, or otherwise, of removing from the Scottish comprehensive pattern, that has applied all over Scotland not only now but in many cases for centuries, those 27 schools that charge fees in Glasgow and Edinburgh, 27 out of 3,000.
If fee-paying schools go from Glasgow and Edinburgh it is the very logic of the arguments put forward tonight that grant-aided schools will also go. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear hear."] Those cries of "Hear, hear" indicate that that is the deep intent of the proposal. It is significant that the Secretary of State put this very early in the Bill; the fee-paying issue is central to the whole controversy.
The hon. Member for Maryhill raised the question of costs. I too have been looking at costs. I leave aside the fact that if there is a frontal attack on the 29 direct grant schools in Scotland this will remove from education funds £1½ million which is the contribution of parents, in addition to the rates and taxes they pay to have their children educated at grant-aided schools. I am trying to emphasise the facts, because much of the theory we have heard tonight is 40 years old, and even in terms of selectivity it is probably 20 years old.
The hon. Member for Mary hill questioned our criticism of the figures. The

Secretary of State tell us that the resulting loss of income from the proposals is £225,000 in a full year, together with additional expenditure of £25,000 on books and materials. There have been many other conflicting accounts on this head. It is true that there was the £63,000 difference to which the hon. Gentleman referred in the figures put forward by the convenor of Glasgow Education Committee. This was his estimate of his increased cost which would go into the kitty and raise the amount to £200,000. But the same gentleman calculated the cost of books as about £80,000. The hon. Gentleman questioned the £80,000. There are 17,000 pupils at stake here, and I estimate the cost of books and stationery for them at £100,000 to £120,000 a year. This allows the pupils only about £7 or £8 per head a year on books and stationery. Is it seriously suggested that these figures are too lavish, too generous? How shall we educate people unless we give them books and stationery?

Mr. Hannan: I made the point that for 365 schools in Glasgow the total expenditure on books is £375,000, which allows £1,000 per school. But £80,000 is the estimated figure for the seven fee-paying schools, and either £80,000 for books for seven schools is too extravagant, or there is parsimony in regard to books for the 365 schools.

Mr. Wright: I am simply trying to establish the veracity of our figures, and suggesting to the Secretary of State that the total cost is probably twice the estimate in the Bill.
There are two other groups of facts that have not yet been stressed in the debate. New buildings will have to be built to replace existing schools if they are destroyed. The Glasgow High School and Allan Glen's, to refer to the school at which the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North taught, will cease to serve the purpose of being neighbourhood schools since they are in the dead centre of the city and will have to be moved out. This will cost money. It has been said that no figures have been worked out for this. But figures have been worked out, and the replacement building costs for Glasgow and Edinburgh alone, estimating that 15 per cent. of the pupils in the six


schools concerned would be moved out into their territorial areas, would, on an optimistic estimate, come to just under £1½ million. I say soberly to the Secretary of State, "At this time, is this the way to spend £1½ million? ". Glasgow High School and Allan Glen's are perfectly good schools, and by moving them out the right hon. Gentleman is exacerbating territorial problems, to which some of my hon. Friends have referred.
There is a problem not only of age, ability and aptitude but of athletics, of the children having sporting fields and facilities. Does the right hon. Gentleman fully understand that Glasgow High and Hillhead have sporting facilities and that, if the clubs are competitively minded, they will ask money for these fields if they are requested to hand them over? The estimate of £225,000 is very modest. The figure could well be £500,000, and if we add what I am suggesting, it might be £2 million or more.
In my second criticism of the Bill I shall widen the argument a little. I head it, "Freedom". I do not want merely to repeat what has been said about parental freedom of choice. If a parent chooses to spend ten shillings a week on the education of his child, there should be an opportunity for him to do so in the affluent society in which we live, whatever the dogmas out of which the comprehensive notion has arisen. In fact, that notion arose out of the English environment. It is irrelevant to Scotland. Interruption.] You have said—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Order. The Chair has not said anything.

Mr. Wright: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am suggesting that there is need to stress parental freedom of choice. There were many references in the Plowden Committee to the need to bring more and more parents into presence in the schools—for example, through parent-teacher associations and through more parental contributions to athletics, music and the like in the schools.
But freedom does not mean only parental freedom. It means—and here I tread on delicate ground—also religious freedom. One third of the population of Glasgow is Roman Catholic. If Notre

Dame becomes comprehensive, there will be no selective Roman Catholic girls' school in Glasgow but there will be five Protestant direct-grant schools.
Moreover, does the right hon. Gentleman fully realise that the area of the Notre Dame Convent and School is dedicated to educational purposes for that foundation to the year 2,009? He should walk warily on that issue. I do not need to stress that the Roman Catholic hierarchy has been critical of some of these proposals.
The right hon. Gentleman stressed that the local authorities have a rôle to play but that he has the right to overrule them. Education is a local matter, and the core of my case is that here we are concerned with a handful of schools which have a great tradition—a word I am not reluctant to use. Schools are organic places and not just brick and mortar, which take their life from the plasma of human material. Some of my hon. Friends have referred to the atmosphere of these schools, which is essential and should be maintained. One has a handful of schools of the quality of these. Glasgow High, after all, is not only 800 years old; it is older than Eton. I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East realises that. It would have been a far better example for him.

Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman keeps referring to Eton. I mentioned Eton once in a reply to an interjection from behind him. I mentioned the schools in Edinburgh throughout my speech.

Mr. Wright: I conclude by referring to the document produced by the E.I.S., putting the case for the abolition of fee-paying schools and for more broadly comprehensive education. In that document are these two sentences:
Where the school has exceptionally well-equipped premises, however, a highly-trained staff and a long tradition of fine academic attainment, one would hope that these resources could be preserved intact. The breaking-up of a good school can hardly be regarded as furthering the progress of education.
I humbly suggest that it is part of the comprehensive character of Scottish education that these fee-paying schools, where the fees are so small as to be almost ironical, and which have a long


tradition, are a corrective to the danger of neighbourhood schools growing up producing a West End in Glasgow which would be "snob" and an East End in parts of the south-east which would be poor. This can help to avert destroying those few old and proud schools which still allow some degree of selectivity.
If there were time I would argue that there are suggestions that in the comprehensive mixed character of many schools selectivity comes in very early and that there is very little social mixture in many of these schools. I will not press the point, because it is not relevant to our debate, but what I am stressing is that we are being invited to preside over the abolition of a handful of schools of a quality and eminence which has enabled them to make a great contribution to Scotland. One has provided two Prime Ministers. On this basis we should oppose the Bill.

Mr. Dempsey: On a point of order Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is very obvious that a lot of hon. Members want to speak this evening. In the past we have seen United Kingdom Bills debated until ten o'clock and then an extension being granted. In view of the importance of this subject and the fact that many hon. Members desire to take part, may I ask if it is possible at this late hour to send for the Leader of the House with a view to getting an extension of the debate so that those who have not yet spoken can put their point of view on a major item of educational importance?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I take note of the hon. Gentleman's point, but it is not a matter for the Chair.

Miss Harvie Anderson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is is not a fact that those who are precluded from speaking in the Committee stage are also left out of this debate? Is there any course open to such hon. Members, who may have as many as 5,000 children in their constituency affected by the Bill?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is any time allocated in the debate for those who are former pupils of the schools referred to?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.

8.54 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: There is a time limit, unfortunately, and it has been placed on me. Therefore these interruptions have considerably threatened the ten minutes which it was suggested I should take. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Wright) referred to Allan Glen's School. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) was a teacher there and I was a pupil. I was a pupil because I managed to win a bursary, value £5 per year for three years. That enabled me to get into the school. It was built with money left by a Glasgow wright called Allan Glen to provide education for those children in the City of Glasgow whose parents could not provide it for them. It was meant to be a school to provide secondary or higher education for children in Glasgow, of whom I was one, who would never get it by the payment of fees. It was free, like many of the best things in life. But what happened to Allan Glen's? Gradually, the business element in Glasgow—

Mr. Manuel: A Tory element.

Mr. Rankin: Yes, a Tory element—gained control of the school. Fees were introduced, and this robbed the school of the purpose for which it was created. However, in order to maintain the pretence that it provided for those whom Allan Glen had in mind when he left the funds to build it, two classes were instituted, to which my right hon. Friend referred—preparatory A and preparatory B. Boys and girls got in at the elementary stage without the payment of fees. If they showed ability, they could get into the secondary stage. But that was a facade to turn free education into education limited to the well-to-do people in the City of Glasgow.
That remains the purpose behind the speeches which have been made today from the benches opposite.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Utter rubbish.

Mr. Rankin: Right hon. and hon. Members opposite are fighting for privilege. They are seeking to maintain a fee-paying system which is utterly irreconcilable with the age in which we live.
However, that does not mean that those of us on this side who have contributed to the debate are entirely happy with the Bill. There is a great deal in it of which I approve. Too little has been said about much of the Bill. One-third of the Bill, apart from the closing parts of it, deals with handicapped children. Not many Bills on education have directed so much attention to, and made provision for, one of the most serious problems n the social life of the City of Glasgow. Those of us who represent divisions like mine, and who see the voluntary work being done for spastic children and the helplessness of these young ones when they come to our meetings and their pleasure at being among normal people, pay high tribute, not only to the voluntary work, but to a Government which is, bit by bit, taking the voluntary element out of this work and backing it with the power of the State.
That is an important aspect of the Bill. It has been, naturally, overwhelmed, not purposely disregarded, by the fact that it is concerned with the dismissal of teachers. These are in a minority, but I have been so long in a minority that I have the utmost sympathy for them. I am not dealing with the rights and wrongs of the issue. I am still in a minority in this House, but I must not talk about that—

Mr. MacArthur: A substantial minority.

Mr. Rankin: I wish it were. The movement to which I belong was built on minorities, and when we on this side of the House pass judgment on minorities we should be very careful in offering a final verdict. Not one of us here would like to be in this situation now; it is a most difficult issue and we have every sympathy with those concerned. It is easy to ask my right hon. Friend to think very carefully before he makes the final decision.
I was once in a minority in a teaching row under the former Glasgow education authority, and gallantly I went to the scaffold. I would not sign, nor would a hundred of my colleagues, on a certain issue. The number gradually dropped until there were only 50; then the education authority, not anxious to dismiss 50 teachers, as it would not be a happy job putting them on the streets when

there was no dole, rather than asking us to injure our pride, said that we need not sign separately but could sign as a group. The thought flashed through my mind when I was listening to the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Mackenzie), realising the different circumstances and the fact that a parliamentary Bill is involved, whether it would be possible at this eleventh hour for my right hon. Friend to consider the idea of a block signature. Losing 800 teachers in Scotland might be a bigger disaster than the risk of the Secretary of State suffering loss of that proper dignity which must attach to his office.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) has asked us to decline to give a Second Reading to a Bill which prevents parents from making any contribution to the cost of local authority schools through the payment of fees. There is far more wealth on that side of the House, looking at us here in the midst of poverty—[Laughter.]—I never thought that the Tories would descend to such a depth of unfairness as to laugh publicly at poverty; it shows how low they can get. There is nothing in this Motion which prevents them making a contribution towards education. Those who are anxious to pay money for education need not pay fees, but they can still pay money for the education provided by the public authority if they so choose. They can pay voluntarily, but they have no business preventing the Government seeking to abolish fees. In our age, education must be free. After all, the best things in life are free, and education is one of the finest advantages that life has to give, and it, too, must be free.
A few days before we rose for the Christmas Recess we had an announcement from our own Front Bench when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science indicated to the House that he was now making arrangements for the continuation of religious education in English schools. There are a good many people who think that religious education ought not to be given in schools, but the Government have decided, and arrangements are being made to continue that education in English schools. Religious education will still go on in Scottish schools for those who want it. We will make provision for it. The Church will give free religious education to children.
However, the Tory Party wants to perpetuate the system of fee-paying schools in Glasgow, and the logical conclusion of that is that right hon. and hon. Members opposite want Glasgow parents to pay for their children's religious education. If fees are paid, they are paid to cover every subject taught in school. As a result of the Government's decision, religious education is a subject which will be taught in our schools. While the Church round the corner gives it free to children, the Tory Party wants to impose fees for it, assuming that the House supports its Amendment. It is an absurd position and one which cannot be faced by the party opposite. When the time comes to vote tonight, I hope that the more even-tempered and better-minded Tories will support the Government in damning the Amendment.

9.7 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: Many of the speeches in the debate have shown that the proposed legislation can be described best as a curate's egg of a Bill. The most that can be said about it is that it is good in parts. I find some parts of it desirable, other parts questionable, and the major proposal thoroughly objectionable.
I think we all agree with the welcome given at the beginning of the debate by my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyle (Mr. Noble) to the proposals for identifying handicapped children and helping them overcome the educational problems and disadvantages which confront them. No doubt we shall debate these proposals in detail in Committee. However, I was glad that my right hon. Friend referred to these as rather complicated Clauses, because I hope that it may be possible for the Secretary of State to simplify their wording. We had a similar discussion about one part of the Social Work (Scotland) Bill when we attempted a good deal of redrafting. It would save considerable time if the right hon. Gentleman could come to Committee with the important Clauses simplified. It is important that they should be simplified, because, perhaps more than most, the parents of such children require an Act which is easy to comprehend. Certainly in its present form the proposed legislation is not easy to comprehend.
We have also heard references to the removal of the right of appeal by parents in Clause 7 after a child has been transferred to secondary education. I warn the right hon. Gentleman that we shall be asking for a great deal more information about this in Committee. Perhaps there will be time, although I doubt it at this late stage, for the hon. Gentleman to say something about it in his reply tonight. What will be the position of a child removed during the course of his secondary education from one local authority area to another? Will the parent have no right of appeal? What will be the position of a child coming home with parents who have, for example, served abroad? There are a number of anomalies of this kind which this restriction might present.
Before turning to the objectionable part of the Bill, the part proposing the abolition of fees in local authority fee-paying schools, I should like to respond to the invitation by the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) to say something about teachers' registration. I do not wish to say very much, because it is easy, speaking off the cuff in this way, to say something which might exacerbate a delicate situation. However, I think that the Secretary of State's review of all that has taken place to date was helpful and was a reminder to teachers that it is in their interests and in the interests of the teaching profession that they should register. Having said that, I hope that we shall hear a little more tonight about the precise intention of the Secretary of State concerning the review to which he has referred.
In a Written Answer just before the Christmas Recess and in the course of his speech today, the right hon. Gentleman spoke about his readiness to hold a review if there was any general feeling among the interests most concerned that this would be desirable. The Secretary of State will know that I wrote to him only a fortnight ago suggesting that he might take a short step further forward than that and announce that there would definitely be an independent review within a stated period. I repeat that suggestion, which I hope is helpful. I believe that a number of teachers have not registered not because they oppose the principle of the General Teaching Council but


because they genuinely hold some severe doubts about its composition and powers. A statement of this kind by the Secretary of State would, I believe, be welcomed and would encourage some of those teachers to register even now. A statement of that kind would not undermine the position of the Secretary of State, although I recognise that interest is not in his mind in this situation, and it certainly would not undermine the position of the G.T.C. Indeed, I understand that the General Teaching Council would welcome the prospect of an early review. So perhaps what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier could be put into a more definite form before the end of the debate.
I hope, too, that we shall be told whether there is any truth in the rumour that some new instruction has been given to local education authorities about the dismissal date, 27th January. Is it or is it not true? A "Yes" or "No" is required by the end of the debate.
The debate has revealed the confused and illogical thinking which lies behind the major purpose of the Bill. I remind the House that the Bill proposes that the Secretary of State should be able to remove, by order, the powers by which local authorities may charge fees in certain schools. There will be a very wide welcome in Scotland, and particularly in Glasgow and Edinburgh, for the assurance which my right hon. Friend gave at the beginning of the debate that the next Conservative Government will rescind any such order. The debate has made it clear, however, that it is not only fees in themselves which are to disappear but the whole educational system of which they are a part. The fees will go and with them we shall lose the principle which has given these schools their strength and character—the principle of selection, and not selection by wealth, or by class, but selection by intellectual merit.
Many people have been wondering why the Government propose to destroy these schools. We were given one reason in the Gracious Speech,
… to bring the law relating to education in Scotland into line with current developments.
Obviously, the Government want to bring Scotland into line with England and Wales. We were reminded this after-

noon by the Secretary of State himself—this simply emphasises my point—that there are no local authority fee-paying schools in England and Wales, and that has been the position since the 1944 Act. But it is not true that Scotland will be brought into line with England by abolishing its local authority fee-paying schools.
There is already less variety in Scottish schools than in English schools, and this variety will be reduced further if the local authority fee-paying schools disappear. Further, the Regulations which stemmed from the 1944 Education Act laid down that the direct grant schools in England and Wales should provide at least a quarter of their places free, without fees, so that, in Lord Butler's words in the debate at the time, they would be brought within the reach of poor pupils.
On the other hand, in Scotland the grant-aided schools do not have this same obligation to provide free places, and so we do not have the fully developed middle sector of education which has been available in England and Wales. This lack has been partially met up to now by the Scottish local authority fee-paying schools. What these egalitarians on the Treasury Bench are doing is removing choice in education not from the rich, who can look elsewhere, but from the poor. Under this Bill they will have no choice.
What hon. Gentlemen opposite overlook in their conformist zeal is that the fee-paying schools, particularly in Edinburgh, provide many of their places free for those who cannot afford to pay even these relatively modest fees. By abolishing these schools the Government are most certainly not bringing Scotland into line with England and Wales on fee paying. Even if that claim were justified, there is no merit in trying to bring our distinct Scottish education system into line with that of England and Wales.
What the Government should do is seek to preserve and protect our Scottish system of education. Scotland expects her Secretary of State to defend Scottish institutions and resist those current developments in Whitehall which have no place in Scottish traditions.
We have heard much today about comprehensive schools, and perhaps they are


one of the "current developments" which are to be imposed on Scotland. I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Buchanan) that comprehensive schools are a traditional and distinguished part of the educational pattern in Scotland. But that is not to say that the comprehensive system should be forced on local authorities to the exclusion of all else. This caution applies particularly to the cities.
Since the publication of Circular 600 the Government have continued the pretence that they are in consultation with local authorities. Some local authorities have bowed to the Government's insistence—I do not question their decision—but the discussions with Edinburgh and Glasgow have shown that the approach of the Government is one of compulsion masquerading as consultation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) made the telling point that we need more authority delegated to local government. The Minister came to these discussions with his mind made up in advance, and the Bill proves it. There has been no recognition in this shabby affair of what the Government recognise in another context; of what was said in the Green Paper "Administrative Reorganisation of the Scottish Health Services"
… the degree of independence traditionally considered appropriate in dealings between local authorities and the central government.
We have seen none of that in this sham consultation that has been taking place.
In their search to justify the Bill hon. Gentlemen opposite have given other reasons for the abolition of these schools. The Secretary of State spoke against selectivity saying that there was no place for it in the comprehensive system. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) gave what I would call a highly coloured picture of the tensions which accompany selectivity. Today, as on many other occasions, we have heard the claim that selectivity is a sin. But the doctrine that other schools are not selective is totally false. There is selectivity in every form of education. I was interested to hear, for example, the hon. Member for Springburn quote from the London Comprehensive Schools Report of 1966. I have that document with me, and I commend to him

another interesting paragraph which shows how selectivity is observed under the comprehensive system. Paragraph 164 begins:
Although many of the schools rely upon a fairly close grading or streaming of the classes, this may not necessarily be known to the pupils and the schools tend to use some ingenuity in devising form names to disguise the grading of the particular form.
Rightly and understandably that paragraph concludes:
How far this deceives the individual pupil is, however, a matter for speculation.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have also sugested that there is no place for fees in education today. I do not agree. If parents are prepared to pay fees towards the education of their children, I see no reason why they should not be allowed to do so. After all, their efforts relieve the taxpayer and ratepayer of a considerable cost—a cost which, I suggest, is much larger than that suggested in the Financial Memorandum to the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Wright) spoke about the cost of books, and, while I will not do a complicated sum, hon. Members may be interested in the list which I have with me of books required for a first-year secondary pupil at one of the local authority fee-paying schools in Glasgow. The cost of books alone for such a pupil is nearly £11. There are nearly 4,000 children in secondary schools in Glasgow, and if that is the cost for each of them, it is probably an under-estimate when one reaches the figure of £42,000 for Glasgow secondary schools alone, leaving aside the primary schools, and let alone Edinburgh, where I concede some of the local authority fee-paying schools are provided with books free.
This figure makes no allowance for the cost of stationery and other materials, which must be met. I suggest, therefore, that the £25,000 mentioned in the Financial Memorandum is a gross underestimate. I believe that by paying fees parents become that much more involved in the education of their children and are, as a result, more disposed to creating a home climate in which the child's study will be encouraged.
It has also been suggested that the existence of fees excludes deserving children from the opportunity to attend


these schools. However, the fees are relatively small—up to about £23 in Glasgow and £44 in Edinburgh. It is difficult to accept the argument that fees of this order seriously deter parents. There has been a long tradition in Scotland of making sacrifices for education. The sacrifice in Glasgow, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) pointed out, amounts to about the cost of a couple of packets of cigarettes a week. These fees are small indeed when set against the amount spent by many families on smoking, drinking, gambling and leisure. They are to be increased, but even then they will not be excessive if the increase of fees is accompanied by the creation of more free places.
We have heard the argument that these fees are socially unjust because they do not represent the actual cost of education. We are asked why ratepayers and taxpayers not enjoying this privilege should subsidise others who do. This is a curious argument to come from a party which requires people in the Borders to pay through taxation towards the railways deficit and yet denies them a train on which to travel. One might ask how many who pay for the Concorde will ever take a seat in a supersonic airliner. Why should schools be singled out from the vast range of tax financed services which are not enjoyed personally by everyone?
Perhaps hon. Members opposite do not regard freedom of choice in education as a desirable service for the community. My hon. Friends and I certainly do. In this we, not they, are on the side of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), like a trumpet from the Silent Service, objected to what he described as educational privilege. Let him use that emotive word if he wishes, but it hardly describes the true position, which is that these school places are open to everyone in the locality and there is a large demand for them.
If the right hon. Gentleman persists in the argument that this so-called privilege should be removed, he should also demand that university students should pay the full cost of the privilege of higher education, or that those who do not attend university should get a tax rebate, or that the universities should become

educationally non-selective. Further arguments such as these would be in line with the right hon. Gentleman's logic, and would have the further advantage of revealing his original premise in its full absurdity.
It has been suggested that the local authority fee-paying schools deprive the non-fee-paying schools in two ways. The first is that they cream off the ablest pupils and so lower the average ability at the other schools. I simply remind the House that there is already a statutory obligation on local authorities that these fee-paying schools should exist without prejudice to the public schools. I will not develop that.

Mr. Mackintosh: Why not develop it? They prejudice the local authority schools.

Mr. MacArthur: I do not develop it, but if the hon. Member says that they prejudice these schools he is claiming that local authorities throughout Scotland have been in breach of Statute for 50 years.
There have been suggestions that the staff-pupil ratio in the local authority fee-paying schools is wrong, but there is no evidence of this. I remind the House that local authorities have been bound for the last 50 years by the clear requirement that the provision of fee-paying schools must be without prejudice to the non-fee-paying schools.
We have also heard the old cry that the schools are "socially divisive", another favourite from the Socialist dictionary of phrase and fable. This is just what the schools are not. Their pupils come from every walk of life and are drawn from a very wide area—the whole of Edinburgh, the whole of Glasgow, and from beyond the city boundaries. Social divisiveness would arise if the schools were converted into territorial neighbourhood schools. In the cities there is more social grouping by area and less truly local sense of community than in the country.
I do not know how the Government would propose to convert the Glasgow High School or the Royal High School in Edinburgh into comprehensive territorial schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) asked pointed questions about this. Have they contemplated the cost? Have they


begun to consider what the catchment area would be? In the case of the other schools the limitation of the catchment area would lead to social divisiveness. Far from removing social divisiveness, the Government are creating it.
These are the arguments advanced by hon. Members opposite in support of their proposal. All the arguments we have heard are false. It is significant that there is one argument which we have not heard. Not one hon. Member has suggested that the education provided at these schools is defective in any way. Indeed, there have been tributes to the quality of that education. There have been references to the long tradition of the schools. That is true, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West that what matters more than tradition is the quality of the education and its application to the challenge of modern life.
In these schools children of proved ability are taught in a testing educational climate for a full course. The places are open to everyone. I cannot accept that the fees they charge are a serious disincentive, particularly in view of the free places provided. The Scottish Council publication referred to by my right hon. Friend shows how the unique quality of these schools can help to attract new industry to Scotland.
The specious arguments advanced in support of the proposal spring from dogma, envy and adherence to questionable and unproved theories, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South pointed out so forcibly. Hon. Members opposite are guided by blind political doctrine and not by a true and open concern for education itself.
Some people may think that we on this side are making a stand on a small matter affecting only a few schools. But these schools teach thousands of young Scots, and the threat to them must be resisted in defence of a fundamental principle, the principle of freedom of choice in education. If this principle goes unchallenged, it will lead surely—hon. Gentleman have pointed this out—to the abolition of grant-aided schools and thereafter to an assault on the independent schools. The question before us tonight may seem to some to be a small matter in itself, but if a little fire is

suffered and not quickly trodden out, rivers cannot quench it in the end. I therefore ask my hon. Friends to vote for the Amendment and so defend freedom of choice in education, a freedom which is put in jeopardy by the Bill.

9.32 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Millan): Despite some of the things said by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), the Bill has been given a general welcome today, because it contains many necessary and desirable provisions affecting the reform of Scottish education.
It is very gratifying that the House as a whole has clearly welcomed the statement my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, made in introducing the Bill, about the General Teaching Council. In particular, the House has welcomed my right hon. Friend's reiteration of the statement that has been made on a number of occasions before that he hopes to have an early review of the Council as soon as the interests which are most intimately concerned with the operation of the Council have said to him that they wish that review to take place.
I do not intend, in the situation existing with regard to the Council, to put any gloss on the words my right hon. Friend used today. I merely say to hon. Gentlemen who have asked either for more precision or that I should say something more about the situation—in particular, I ask those outside the House concerned with this matter, especially qualified teachers who are not yet registered—to read very carefully the statement my right hon. Friend made today.
I do not believe that we are at a situation now or, indeed, that we have needed to arrive at a situation, in which there can be any legitimate reason why any teacher who wishes to see the success of the Council should not register forthwith. The general view of the House today has been that qualified teachers who have not yet registered should now register. They need not, by so doing, by any means deny the objections they may have to the constitutional functions of the Council. These are all discussable. They can all be argued about in the months ahead. We must get a situation in which we can discuss these questions


in an atmosphere of calm instead of one of crisis. What my right hon. Friend said today and what he has said on previous occasions gives a basis for this.
I have one other word to say about the General Teaching Council, and this arises from a matter raised by several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire. I was asked whether there had been some development in the situation by which the Secretary of State had said to the local authority associations and the local authorities, "Please postpone your meetings for Monday, 27th January, and hold them two, three or four months later". There is absolutely no truth in that suggestion. We have not been in touch with the local authorities, either through their associations or individually, about this matter.
I ought to make clear that the date 27th January is not one which comes from the Regulations. It is a date come to by the local authorities meeting together in association and deciding how they would deal with the situation in a consistent and concerted way. That is the date which they themselves chose. It stands. I understand that the local authorities have agreed among themselves that on that date the dismissal motions will be carried and the dismissal notices will be sent out, with the two months' notice, to the teachers concerned.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will the hon. Gentleman nevertheless confirm that there is nothing in any sense legally binding about the date 27th January? It was plucked out of thin air by the Association of County Councils, and it has no element of binding force at all.

Mr. Millan: As I have said, the date is not written in the Regulations. The operative date for registration is 1st April, 1968. I emphasise again the point which my right hon. Friend made this afternoon—the date 27th January demonstrates it—that there has been no question of rushing into the situation. There was a long development before 1st April, 1968, and that is the operative date. Every teacher qualified to register ought to have registered from that date.
I hope that I have made the position clear. In any case, what I have said about the dale 27th January in no way

detracts from what I said earlier regarding my right hon. Friend's statement. I believe it to be the general view of the House that teachers who have not registered should register forthwith.
Before coming to the controversial item in the Bill, I shall answer one or two other points which have been raised. The right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) asked about Clause 7 and the precise nature of the new arrangements for appeal to the Secretary of State. I suggest that this is a matter which can be developed in Committee, but, to fill in the background to some extent, I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, in practice, virtually all appeals to the Secretary of State in recent years have been appeals at the point of transfer. That is what is provided for in the Clause. However, I have some sympathy with the points which the right hon. Gentleman made, and I look forward to having the matter debated in Committee. To my mind, it is by no means a question on which the balance comes down wholly on one side.
I was asked about Clause 9, with particular reference to the question of a single leaving date, by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Buchanan) and one or two other hon. Members. I repeat what my right hon. Friend said in opening. He has no intention of imposing a single leaving date at present or as far forward as one can see—certainly not before the raising of the school-leaving age, or, one would think, until some time after that, when we have accommodated the difficulties in raising the age. However, it seemed right to provide the statutory framework for a single leaving date in order to allow it to be introduced either by the Secretary of State or, in the initial period—this is much more likely—by a particular authority which wished to have a single leaving date. Such an authority would then be able to ask for the Secretary of State's approval. But I do not know of any education authority in Scotland at present which would wish to introduce a single leaving date in the near future.
Now, Clause 11 and the problem of handicapped children. I appreciate what was said by several hon. Members about the devoted work done for these children in the special schools, in occupational centres and outside the education service


in the care centres run by the local health authorities. The same praise is rightly given to the devoted work done by voluntary societies for so many of these children. I also take the point of the right hon. Gentleman that we are providing what we consider to be a better statutory framework, but we must not by this raise the hopes of the parents of the children concerned that we have produced a magic formula which will be able to deal with the sometimes very distressing difficulties one finds in such cases. Nevertheless, what we are doing is an important step forward.
I was asked about Clause 16, on consultations with the Central Institutions before the introduction of Regulations. Again, I ask the House to read what my right hon. Friend said very fully about this. It is our intention that there should be the fullest consultation, as is the practice in matters of this kind already in the education service, and there is no danger of the Secretary of State's introducing Regulations in the initial stage or later without the fullest consultation with all the interests concerned.
I was also asked about Clause 24 by, among others, my hon. Friend the Member for Springburn and about the change we are making in the regulation-making powers. This will no doubt be exhaustively considered in Committee, like virtually everything else in the Scottish Committee.
We feel that the present procedure is unnecessarily cumbersome, that it produces delays without at the end of the day providing a more desirable result for the Secretary of State or for the teachers' associations, the local authorities or the other interests concerned. We believe that we can get the necessary consultation without going through the rather elaborate procedure, which is not repeated elsewhere in our legislation, of draft Regulations before the production of final Regulations. I hope that if we do not have the support of the Opposition as a whole on this we may have the support of the right hon. Gentleman, who has had some experience of this as Secretary of State and must know the difficulty to which the present procedure can sometimes give rise.
Now I should like to come to the matter which has taken up most of the

discussion today, the proposal to remove the right of local education authorities in Scotland to impose fees at local authority schools. I am not sure why the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire should say that this is the major proposal in the Bill. It is one of a number of important proposals, and I do not look upon it as the only major proposal. It is certainly not the reason why the Bill is being produced at this time, but it is an important proposal because it raises a number of questions of principle which I shall want to deal with shortly. The Opposition have it quite out of proportion, and they have it out of proportion in their estimate of public feeling in Scotland on the matter. Listening to the speeches of hon. Members opposite I found it difficult to understand what the mixture of principle and practical considerations was, and which of the various considerations they attach particular importance to in their criticisms. The real difficulty of the Opposition on such a matter is that very few hon. Members opposite understand Scottish education. Not a single Conservative Member who has spoken was educated at a Scottish school.

Mr. Galbraith: I was educated for seven years in Glasgow.

Mr. Millan: Mr. Millan rose—

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Galbraith: Mr. Galbraith rose—

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us get back to education.

Mr. Galbraith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can I have your protection? This is something constantly cast against hon. Members on this side. I spent seven years at school in Glasgow, and if Glasgow is not in Scotland I do not know what is.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Millan: Mr. Millan rose—

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Millan: I am not sure why hon. Members opposite should be so sensitive about having been educated at English public schools. Perhaps I can give the


facts to the House. The right hon. Member for Argyll is an old Etonian, as is the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison).

Mr. Clark Hutchison: And a proud one.

Mr. Millan: The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) was at Wellington, as was the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith). The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire was at Cheltenham College. The odd man out is the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Wright), who is an English grammar school old boy—and I sympathise with him sitting on the benches opposite.

Mr. MacArthur: I find it difficult to know what the hon. Gentleman is trying to prove. The experience of Scottish education on this side is no less than that of hon. Members opposite. I have six children. Three of them are at school in Scottish State schools and one is at an independent school. The hon. Gentleman has had some fun. I hope that he will now give a serious reply to the important questions arising in the debate.

Mr. Millan: Perhaps if Members would not keep interrupting me I could get on.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not the hon. Gentleman reflecting on the Chair? He must know that several hon. Members who sought to speak on this side of the House but were not called were educated at Scottish schools. Surely he is criticising the Chair for not selecting hon. Members on this side who were educated at schools in Scotland.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister was not reflecting on the Chair.

Mr. Millan: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) was educated at the High School of Glasgow. He was one of the cream, presumably—God help us.
I come now to the merits of what we are discussing. First, I will deal with the practical consideration. There seems some controversy about the amount of finance involved. As explained in the Financial Memorandum, it is £250,000. To get this into proportion, we must

appreciate that we are spending about £200 million a year on Scottish education at present.
The second practical consideration put up is that the buildings in some cases have not been designed for comprehensive purposes. But the practical problem here is no different from the practical problem of integration with any other senior secondary school in Scotland. Similarly, the practical problems of integration such as those raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh are again in the first instance matters for the local education authorities. I presume that he would not wish it otherwise. I have told both Glasgow and Edinburgh that once the Bill is passed I expect that they will produce proposals for integration of the schools within the comprehensive system in those two cities, with the initiative in the first instance resting with the local education authorities.
I come now to what we might call the "principles". I find it difficult to understand what the excitement is about.
The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire kept talking about the unique character of these schools and the unique contribution that they have made to Scottish education. Basically the argument is not about primary schools but about secondary schools. There are not 27 secondary schools, there are only eight involved in this provision. Five are in Glasgow, three in Edinburgh. Are the right hon. Member for Argyll and the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire seriously saying that education in Argyll and East Perthshire is deficient in some respects because there are no fee-paying schools there? If they are not saying that I find it difficult to understand what they are saying.

Mr. Noble: What I am saying is that if in future the education authority in Argyll or anywhere else wants to reintroduce fee-paying schools for a good educational reasons we will allow it to do so.

Mr. Millan: That does not answer my question. I am asking about a matter of fact. As of now, as of today, does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the educational system in Argyll is deficient?

Mr. Noble: I did not say so.

Mr. Millan: He does not. Then I cannot understand what the argument is about. It was part of his case and part of the case of every hon. Gentleman opposite that without these fee-paying selective schools one was not providing adequate secondary education for the children of Scotland.
These schools, small in number, have a quite disproportionate influence in particular areas. The very eloquent and excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) demonstrated that with a wealth of personal experience and background, cutting through arguments about details and so on in a way which I cannot hope hope to emulate in the few minutes left to me. Nor do I think that the principle can rest on the payment of fees as such. With the payment of fees one is in a dilemma. If the fees are too large the schools inevitably become exclusive.
On the other hand, if the fees are small then it is a remarkable proposition that on payment of a small fee somehow or other a parent should be able to buy a better education for his child, which is again the argument being used by hon. Members opposite. If there is a case for a different kind of education, a selective kind, it has nothing to do with the payment of fees. In this respect fees are irrelevant, but it is fees that we are directly dealing with in the Bill.
Let us examine the proposition that in any case it can be right or desirable to pay within the State system for a better kind of education. If it is a better kind of education, then it is completely inexcusable within the State system. Better for some implies worse for others. Better does not mean anything unless it is in comparison with something which is worse. If it is not a better kind of education, I find it difficult to understand why anyone can possibly suffer from the change that we are proposing.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have suddenly become wedded to the idea of selection, or at least the old Adam has come out again. Some of these schools have selection not at the age of 12 but at the age of five. Apart from the absurdity of this, one result is to pre-empt the places in the secondary schools on a selection procedure which is decided at

the age of five, or, in the particular case where the secondary place is not pre-empted, then an injustice is bound to be done to the child who is taken in at the age of five and told at the age of 12 that he is not good enough to go on to the secondary form of the fee-paying school. Either way this selection seems not only to be an absurdity but to involve injustice.
Selection at the age of 12 is against everything we are doing elsewhere in Scottish education, including what we are doing in Argyllshire and Perthshire. As my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian said, fee paying in the areas where it exists distorts the primary school in a way which is highly undesirable in a system in which we are trying to relax and liberalise the primary school and not have primary education geared exclusively to the production of a small percentage of successes at 12. The system is incompatible with comprehensive education, and hon. Members opposite may as well face up to that fact.
It is not possible in any area to have a genuine comprehensive system and a selective system working side by side. This is the kind of unreal compromise which appeals to hon. Members opposite because it means that they can avoid looking at the realities. It is a complete contradiction in terms and it is not possible to have it because the creaming influence involved in the existence of the selective system in the same area as the existence of the comprehensive system. We know very well that that is a matter, not just of educational argument and theory, but of direct and basic educational experience.
Nor is it true, as the right hon. Member for Argyll argued, on extremely dubious statistics which clearly he did not fully comprehend, that there are better examination results in the fee-paying schools compared with the comprehensive and senior secondary schools.

Mr. Noble: Totally unfair and incorrect.

Mr. Millan: The pupils are different. They start from a different basis. Secondly, one is concerned, not simply with the percentage of passes in relation to those presented, but with the basis upon which presentations are made


in the first place, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said.
The quotations of the right hon. Member for Argyll from the Report of the National Foundation for Educational Research, another document which obviously he had not understood, were particularly inept since a moment or two before he was warning us against going on English and Welsh experience. The Report dealt exclusively with English and Welsh schools and did not mention Scottish schools at all.
The most absurd argument of all is the argument of parental choice. Whatever the virtues of the selective system, the one virtue which cannot be claimed for it is the virtue of parental choice, because one is either in or out. If one is out, it does not matter what one's parental choice may be. That is the essent of the selective system. Hon. Members opposite have never had to bear the rigours of the selective system be-

cause they have always been able to contract out by paying fees outside the State system.

I have dealt with a number of the points which have been raised in the debate. I have not pretended for a minute that this proposal, and the comprehensive system as we have it now will by themselves solve the problems of inequality of opportunity. The problems in education are more fundamental than that. But this proposal is an important step forward because it elucidates the principles. It enables us to argue where we are going in Scottish education. Taken with the rest of the proposals in it, this is a very worth-while Bill which I have great pleasure in commending to the House.

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 132, Noes 182.

Division No. 45.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Grant, Anthony
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Grant-Ferris, R.
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Grieve, Percy
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)


Balniel, Lord
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Pereival, Ian


Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Black, Sir Cyril
Hamilton, Lord (Fermanagh)
Pounder, Rafton


Blaker, Peter
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Prior, J. M. L.


Body, Richard
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Pym, Francis


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Heseltine, Michael
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Hiley, Joseph
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Brewis, John
Holland, Philip
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Hordern, Peter
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Hornby, Richard
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Hunt, John
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Iremonger, T. L.
Russell, Sir Ronald


Bullus, Sir Eric
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Scott, Nicholas


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Scott-Hopkins, James


Channon, H. P G.
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Sharples, Richard


Cooke, Robert
Kershaw, Anthony
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Kimball, Marcus
Sinclair, Sir George


Costain, A. P.
Kirk, Peter
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)


Crouch, David
Lane, David
Stodart, Anthony


Cunningham, Sir Knox
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Dalkeith, Earl of
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)


Dance, James
MacArthur, Ian
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Dean, Paul
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Maginnis, John E.
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Marten, Neil
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Maude, Angus
Ward, Dame Irene


Drayson, G. B.
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr, S. L. C-
WeatherilI, Bernard


Eden, Sir John
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Mills, stratton (Belfast, N.)
Williams, Donald (Dudley)


Elliott, R. W.(N'c tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Miscampbell, Norman
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Emery, Peter
Monro, Hector
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Errington, Sir Eric
Montgomery, Fergus
Worsley, Marcus


Eyre, Reginald
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Wright, Esmond


Fortescue, Tim
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Wylie, N. R.


Foster, Sir John
Murton, Oscar
Younger, Hn. George


Galbraith, Hn. T. G.
Nabarro, Sir Gerald



Gibson-Watt, David
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Mr. Jasper More and


Glover, Sir Douglas
Nott, John
Mr. Timothy Kitson.


Goodhew, Victor






NOES


Abse, Leo
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, East)
Hannan, William
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Alldritt, Walter
Harper, Joseph
Moyle, Roland


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Murray, Albert


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Haseldine, Norman
Newens, Stan


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Hazell, Bert
Oakes, Gordon


Baxter, William
Henig, Stanley
Ogden, Eric


Beaney, Alan
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
O'Malley, Brian


Bidwell, Sydney
Hooley, Frank
Orme, Stanley


Binns, John
Hooson, Emlyn
Oswald, Thomas


Bishop, E. S.
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Blackburn, F
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)
Palmer, Arthur


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Park, Trevor


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Howie, W.
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Booth, Albert
Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Hunter, Adam
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Hynd, John
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)


Buchan, Norman
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Price, William (Rugby)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Probert, Arthur


Butter, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Rankin, John


Cant, R. B.
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.


Carmichael, Neil
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Judd, Frank
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Coe, Denis
Kelley, Richard
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Kenyon, Clifford
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Crawshaw, Richard
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Rose, Paul


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Lawson, George
Ross, Rt. Hn. William


Dalyell, Tam
Leadbitter, Ted
Rowlands, E.


Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Ledger, Ron
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Lestor, Miss Joan
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton. N. E.)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Lomas, Kenneth
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Loughlin, Charles
Silverman, Julius


Dempsey, James
Luard, Evan
Skeffington, Arthur


Dewar, Donald
Lubbock, Eric
Slater, Joseph


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Small, William


Dickens, James
McBride, Neil
Snow, Julian


Dobson, Ray
McCann, John
Spriggs, Leslie


Doig, Peter
MacColl, James
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Driberg, Tom
Macdonald, A. H.
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Eadie, Alex
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross&Crom'ty)
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


Ellis, John
Mackintosh, John P.
Thornton, Ernest


Ensor, David
Maclennan, Robert
Tinn, James


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Urwin, T. W.


Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Varley, Eric G.


Ferryhough, E.
McNamara, J. Kevin
Watkins, David (Consett)


Finch, Harold
MacPherson, Malcolm
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Weitzman, David


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Whitaker, Ben


Forrester, John
Mallalieu, J. P. W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Whitlock, William


Fowler, Gerry
Manuel, Archie
Williams, Alan Lee (Homchurch)


Freeson, Reginald
Mapp, Charles
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Galpern, Sir Myer
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Gardner, Tony
Mendelson, John
Winnick, David


Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Mikardo, Ian
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Gregory, Arnold
Millan, Bruce



Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Miller, Dr. M. S.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Mr. Charles Grey and


Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

Mr. J. D. Concannon


Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 39 (Amendment on second or third reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on the Agriculture (Spring Traps) (Scotland) Bill and on the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Bill may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed—[Mr. Ross.]

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law relating to education in Scotland, and for connected purposes, it is expedient to authorise—

(1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) any sums which the Secretary of State is authorised or required by or under the said Act to pay out of moneys so provided;

(b) any administrative expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under the said Act;
(c) any sums which, in consequence of any provision of the said Act, fall to be paid under any other enactment out of moneys so provided;
(2) the charge on, and the payment out of, the Consolidated Fund of any sums which, under any provision of the said Act, fall to be paid out of that Fund to any education authorities by way of compensation for the loss occasioned to those authorities by the cessation of payment to them of grants under section 77 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1962;
(3) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any sums which fall to be so paid in consequnece of any provision of the said Act of the present Session.—[Mr. Ross.]

AGRICULTURE (SPRING TRAPS) (SCOTLAND) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

10.11 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: I note that all the Amendments are linked. I suggest that we take them together if neither side has any objection.

Clause 2

MEANING OF APPOINTED DAY

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Norman Buchan): I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 19, leave out 'any' and insert 'an'.

These Amendments are consequential on the Amendment accepted in Committee which deleted from Clause 2(1) the power to defer the appointed day, and in effect they confine the detailed provisions of the Bill relating to the variation of the appointed day by order, to orders advancing the appointed day.

All are drafting Amendments and the only ones of substance are the second and third. Those delete from Clause 2(2) the reference to the interval that must be allowed between the date on which an advancing or deferring Order is made and the day which such an order appoints, and re-state the reference to a period of one year as the minimum period that must elapse between the date on which an Order advancing the appointed day is made and the appointed day which it specifies.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: I accept the proposition that these are all consequential upon the decision arrived at in Committee. We argued this matter with some vigour and we were defeated. I do not propose to traverse the ground again. Therefore, I am prepared to accept the argument that the hon. Gentleman has put forward.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: No. 2, in page 1, leave out lines 21 and 22 and insert 'one year'.

No. 3, in page 2, leave out lines 1 and 2.

No. 4, in page 2, line 4, leave out 'orders' and insert 'an order'.

No. 5, in page 2, line 6, leave out 'any such' and insert 'such an'.—[Mr. Buchan.]

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

MINES AND QUARRIES (TIPS) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: I have published, as is my wont, a list of the Amendments which I have selected for discussion.

New Clause 1

NOTIFICATION OF BEGINNING AND ENDING OF TIPPING OPERATION

(1) Not less than thirty days before tipping operations are begun from a mine or quarry of a prescribed class or description on premises which, immediately before the operations began, were not the site of a tip to which this Part of this Act applies, the owner of the mine or quarry shall give notice to the inspector for the district of the intention to begin tipping operations on those premises.

(2) Not more than two months after the date on which tipping operations from a mine or quarry of a prescribed class or description cease at an active tip, the owner of the mine or quarry shall give notice to the inspector for the district that tipping operations have ceased at that tip.

(3) Where tipping operations from a mine or quarry of a prescribed class or description are to be resumed at a tip which was formerly a closed tip, the owner of the mine or quarry shall give notice to the inspector for the district of the intention to resume tipping operations at the tip not less than thirty days, or such shorter period as the inspector may permit, before the operations are resumed.—[Mr. Mason.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members will note that we are discussing at the same time Amendment No. 1 and Amendment No. 2, in Clause 4, page 4, line 22, leave out from 'to' to end of Clause and insert:
'the beginning or ending of tipping operations from a mine or quarry notice shall be given to the inspector for the district, namely—

(a) thirty days before the beginning of tipping operations from the mine or quarry


on premises which immediately before the operations began were not the site of a tip to which this part of the Act applies; and
(b) two months after the day on which tipping operations from the mine or quarry cease at an active tip; and
(c) thirty days before the resumption of tipping operations from the mine or quarry at a tip which was formerly a closed tip'.

The Minister of Power (Mr. Roy Mason): I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
The new Clause is intended to replace Clause 4 in the Bill as printed. During our discussions of that Clause in Committee, the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) moved an Amendment the purpose of which was to ensure that the Mines Inspectorate was informed before mine or quarry refuse was deposited on a new site, or tipping resumed on a closed tip. The Bill at present proposes that it should be given afterwards. The hon. Member's arguments were persuasive and, although I agreed that his proposal that 30 days advance notice should be given in the case of tipping on a new site was reasonable, I pointed out:
..it may well be impossible to give the same notice, that is, 30 days, when tipping is resumed on the site of a closed tip."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B; I9th November, 1968; c. 30.]
However, I undertook to consider before Report how far I could go to satisfy much of what he required, and this proposed new Clause is the outcome.
The hon. Member will find, I think, that I have been able to meet him almost entirely. The periods of advance notice to be given before tipping operations are begun on a new site or are resumed on a closed tip and the time within which notification of the cessation of such operations must be given to the inspector for the district are those which the hon. Member put forward in his Amendment, which I see he has tabled again.
There are two differences between that Amendment and the new Clause. The first is that the Government Amendment enables me to prescribe the classes or descriptions of mines or quarries to whose tipping operations these three provisions apply. The Bill as drafted includes this power and I consider that it is desirable to retain it, so that the provision does not have to be applied in

the case of small mines or quarries producing minimal quantities of refuse, which could not in any circumstances give rise to danger.
Second, the new Clause enables the inspector for the district to permit the resumption of tipping on a closed tip within a shorter period than the specified 30 days. This is to meet the case where tipping on an active tip may have to stop at short notice, that is, because of a plant breakdown or in the interests of safety, and he resumed elsewhere to avoid the mine or quarry having to close down. Such a power for inspectors is acceptable, because a closed tip will form part of the mine or quarry and will already have been subject to the provisions of this Bill, when enacted, and will have been subject to the inspector's supervision.
The new Clause does not, however, enable an inspector to permit tipping to start on a virgin site within the stipulated period of 30 days. Before such a site can be used for tipping, the mine or quarry operators will have to secure planning permission and also carry out any procedures laid down under Regulations made under Clause 1(2) of the Bill to ensure that the land is satisfactory for use as a tipping site.
These hurdles will not be cleared overnight. Prudent mine and quarry owners will, therefore, plan in advance and have tipping sites in reserve. There will be nothing to stop the owners giving notice to the inspector for the district of their intention to use the sites for tipping well before they are expected to be needed. There is thus no need for inspectors to have power to allow tipping to begin on a new site within 30 days, nor would it be desirable for them to have such a power. I should perhaps make it clear that the purpose of 30 days' notice is not to enable the inspector to carry out tests to prove that the site is suitable, but to enable him to check that the procedures prescribed in the Regulations about siting have been properly observed.
I thought that it was right to give the House a full explanation of the new Clause. It is in deference to the views of the hon. Member and his hon. Friends in Committee. This is substantially what the Opposition in Committee required,


particularly the hon. Member for Hereford, and I hope that he will feel that his demands have now been satisfied.

Mr. David Gibson-Watt: The hour is late and it is regrettable that we must enter the Report and Third Reading stages of a Bill such as this, which puts into legislation the findings of the Aberfan Report, at 10.15 p.m. Nevertheless, having debated this matter in Committee upstairs on 19th November last, I agree with what he said, and that it is acceptable to us. In Committee the Minister said:
Although I could not agree at the moment with the hon. Member "—
he was referring to me
exactly on the prescribed days of notification before tipping starts, or before cessation of tipping, or before resumption of tipping, I am prepared to consider before Report how far I can go to meet him in order to satisfy much of what he requires."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, STANDING COMMITTEE B, 19th November, 1968; c. 30.]
We are grateful that he has taken this view and we believe that this part of the Bill, as amended, is a great advance on what the Government originally put forward. I will not add anything more at this stage.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I will not delay the House if that is avoidable. I am somewhat concerned with the amount of work that is being placed on the shoulders of mines' inspectors. Would it not be to the advantage of all concerned if the local authority were also consulted? After all, the local authority has certain planning powers and might have been active in a known mining area for a considerable time. Meanwhile, the local mines' inspector might be almost a stranger to the area.
I am particularly concerned about older coalfields. The tip in South Wales which is in our minds is a particular instance of what we must bear in mind. Having regard to the physical topography of that coalfield and the fact that many millions of tons of coal have been mined there, I believe that someone in addition to the mines' inspector should be consulted. If not, I shall definitely not be satisfied with this part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 2

CONSULTATION WITH TIP SAFETY COMMITTEE

Before making any regulation with respect to any matter on mining with respect to which it appears to the Minister requisite or expedient to make provision for the purpose of ensuring the security or stability of tips to which this Act applies, for securing that land on which tipping operations are to be carried out is satisfactory for the purpose and otherwise for carrying this Act into effect the Minister shall consult the Tip Safety Committee.—[Sir J. Eden.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir John Eden: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
We have tabled this new Clause because we want to be certain that before making any regulations concerning the security or stability of tips and the suitability of land for tipping the Minister shall consult the Tip Safety Committee.
In our consideration of this point, we have very much in mind the recommendations of the tribunal which inquired into the Aberfan disaster. I will mention some passages from that Report so that the House may understand why we attach such importance to the new Clause. I wish to underline at the outset what was said in paragraph 283:
The disaster teaches several broad lessons relative to tips in general. The first is that they should all be regarded as potentially dangerous. The second is that they should all be treated as engineering structures …
The clear recommendation was made later in the Report that a National Tip Safety Committee should be created. Recommendation X on page 131 said:
A National Tip Safety Committee should be appointed to advise the Minister and to co-ordinate research into the problem of tip safety …
This Committee was established to advise the Minister in the exercise of his responsibility for the safety and inspection of all tips. But the Minister appeared rather reluctant to consult it, at any rate in the first place.
On the first day of the proceedings in Committee, the Minister sought to offer some explanation for his failure to consult. It was a pretty lame excuse. As recorded in col. 8 of the OFFICIAL


REPORT of the Committee for 19th November last year, he said:
I had intended meeting that Committee …
that is the Tip Safety Committee—
this morning, but this Committee …
that is Standing Committee B—
has taken preference".
That was a lame excuse for he should clearly have consulted that Committee well in advance of proceedings in the Standing Committee.
He went on to tell the Standing Committee that the Tip Safety Committee was busy preparing guidance:
particularly for local authorities … so that they are ready when the Bill goes through."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 19th November, 1968, c. 8.]
Later in the same debate, as reported in col. 17, he said that the Tip Safety Committee was already preparing its first draft for guidance to the local authorities which would amount to what he called a "code of guidance" on tips.
Can we be sure that the regulations will be based upon that code? Just how comprehensive will the guidance be? I assume that it will not be concerned solely with tips that might constitute a danger, but that it will cover all the matters referred to in Appendix F of the tribunal report. Appendix F was based on the memorandum by Sir Andrew Bryan, a former member of the National Coal Board and one time Chief Inspector of Mines. In that memorandum reference was made to the nature of the subsoil, the slope of the ground, presence of water, proximity to places of work and houses, to various methods of tipping, to the nature of material to be tipped, to the safe height of a tip, symptoms of instability in a tip and to the system of inspection required in different circumstances.
The House would be glad to hear from the Minister on this important matter and to know what progress has been made. It will wish to be assured that the Tip Safety Committee is regarded by him and his Department as a permanent source of advice and guidance whose duties will not be considered to have ended just because the code of guidance has been prepared. I am sorry to have to press the Minister on these points, for it should not be necessary to do so, but he has not made it easy

for us to find with whom he has consulted on these complex engineering matters. He seemed so reluctant to take counsel with the Tip Safety Committee before preparing the Bill that we want to be sure that he does so before making regulations.
The Tip Safety Committee is a body of experts, a source of professional advice of a specialised nature in whom the public have faith. We are not prepared to leave the question of consultation to generalised reassurances of good will. We want the obligation on the Minister to be clearly laid down in the Bill.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I wish to be quite clear on a rather more minor matter than that which has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden). It is whether or not we can be quite certain that the Tip Safety Committee will be charged with responsibility in regard to quarries settling ponds and slurry ponds.
The right hon. Gentleman may know that on 8th February last year in my constituency the retaining dam of a settling pond burst and there was damage to property and to high roads. Luckily there was no loss of life, but that might have been suffered. This was at Stoney Middleton. I want to be quite sure that the Tip Safety Committee will be charged with the duty of looking into these matters and making recommendations to the Minister concerning settling ponds and their dams. I tried at the time to find whose responsibility this was. It came to light that it was nobody's responsibility to inspect this type of slurry pond, or "dangerous tip" under the new definition in Clause 2 of this Bill. It was not the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility. It was not the responsibility of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. Nobody seemed to be responsible for inspecting and controlling. Local authorities had no power to act.
I seek an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that in future there will be continuing surveillance of such operations, that the right hon. Gentleman's mines inspectors will be charged in the future of ensuring that slurry and tailing ponds are operated safely, and that the


Tip Safety Committee is charged with making recommendations to the right hon. Gentleman.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Mason: I welcome the Shadow Minister of Power. He has appeared at Question Time on power matters, but this was his maiden speech on power. He did not take part in the proceedings in Committee, but we welcome his voice on Report and Third Reading.
I do not treat this matter lightly. Although the question of consultation with the Tip Safety Committee was dealt with at length in Standing Committee, it arose out of my honesty, because I confessed to the Standing Committee that I had not met the Tip Safety Committee, although I had met the Chairman of that Committee. The reason was that I did not want to interfere with the operations of the Committee. It was making a number of visits, gathering information, and advising my Safety and Health Division. For those various reasons, I did not call in the Committee for consultations, but I met its Chairman.
I want to spell out briefly that there is no need for the Clause. First, the Tip Safety Committee will remain in being as long as there is work for it to do. It will be helping with the preparation of regulations. Then it will be advising on any changes that may be necessary in the light of its experience or knowledge. Secondly, I gave strong assurances in Standing Committee—I refer hon. Members to columns 16–17 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 19th November—that the Committee would be consulted on the many regulations that we may have to frame following the Bill. These regulations will necessarily be drafted against a civil engineering background. It is in their preparation that the Committee can make one of its most effective contributions.
The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) argued that because of its background the Committee can be useful as distinct from the Mines Inspectorate. Therefore, it will be kept on as long as it can give advice and guidance to me, and possibly long after the regulations have been framed. Thirdly, it is unusual for advisory committees to

be mentioned in a Statute. My Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee and my Advisory Committee on Research and Development have no statutory existence, but they are none the worse for that. Fourthly, the present arrangement allows the maximum flexibility both in the Committee's terms of reference and in its composition to meet the changing circumstances.
Therefore, although fears may be expressed based on the Committee's not having a statutory base, I assure the House that the Committee will remain in being for as long as there is work for it to do. It is pressing ahead with its notes for guidance of local authorities, which will be an extensive and detailed document. I hope that it will not be long before it is available. The National Coal Board has already produced its code of practice on tipping operations, which in itself is a mammoth document.
I assure the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) that the Committee is also considering the problem of disused lagoons. The covering of settling ponds is a matter for the Mines Inspectorate, which is working with the Committee on that aspect.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Will the Mines Inspectorate have a continuing responsibililty for settling ponds under the Bill when enacted?

Mr. Mason: As regards a settling pond at an active mine, or one which is being used as an active spoil heap, the Mines Inspectorate has responsibility for that, too.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The Minister's reply disappoints us. What he said about discussions with the Tip Safety Committee is entirely accurate, but we still consider that the discussions should have taken place earlier. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had been honest. I am glad he was. The direct question was put to him by several of my hon. Friends and myself, and his answer left us in no doubt that he should have treated with the Tip Safety Committee at an earlier time.
In reply to the case put today by my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) and for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins), the


Minister said that the Tip Safety Committee would be kept on, possibly, long after the regulations had been made, and a little later he said that it would stay there as long as there was work for it to do. That is not going far enough. We wish to have proper provision for it written into the Bill. The whole spirit of the Aberfan Report is that there was a lack of civil engineering knowledge and that, where there was such knowledge, it was not adequately used. Within the excellent membership of the Tip Safety Committee there are several gentlemen with civil engineering knowledge.

Division No. 46.]
AYES
[10.39 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Heseltine, Michael
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Holland, Philip
Pym, Francis


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hooson, Emlyn
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Black, Sir Cyril
Hordern, Peter
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Blaker, Peter
Hornby, Richard
Rhys, Williams, Sir Brandon


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Hunt, John
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Body, Richard
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Boyle, Rt. Un. Sir Edward
Iremonger, T. L.
Russell, Sir Ronald


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Scott, Nicholas


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Kershaw, Anthony
Scott-Hopkins, James


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Kirk, Peter
Sharples, Richard


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)
Kitson, Timothy
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &Whitby)


Cooke, Robert
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Sinclair, Sir George


Crouch, David
Lane, David
Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Smith, John (London & W'minstar)


Dance, James
Lubbock, Eric
Stodart, Anthony


Dean, Paul
MacArthur, Ian
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Maginnis, John E.
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Drayson, G. B.
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Eden, Sir John
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Ward, Dame Irene


Elliott, R. W.(N'c'tlc-upon-Tyne. N.)
Monro, Hector
Weatherill, Bernard


Emery, Peter
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Errington, Sir Eric
Murton, Oscar
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Eyre, Reginald
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Fortescue, Tim
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Worsley, Marcus


Foster, Sir John
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Wright, Esmond


Gibson-Watt, David
Nott, John
Wylie, N. R.


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Younger, Hn. George


Glover, Sir Douglas
Page, Graham (Crosby)



Goodhew, Victor
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grieve, Percy
Percival Ian
Mr. Jasper More and


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Pounder, Rafton
Mr. Anthony Grant.




NOES


Abse, Leo
Carter-Jones, Lewis
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Coe, Denis
Fernyhough, E.


Alldritt, Walter
Crawshaw, Richard
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Dalyell, Tarn
Forrester, John


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Fowler, Gerry


Bidwell, Sydney
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Freeson, Reginald


Bishop, E. S.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Gardner, Tony


Blackburn, F.
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Dempsey, James
Gregory, Arnold


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Dewar, Donald
Grey, Charles (Durham)


Booth, Albert
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Bottomley, Rt- Hn. Arthur
Dickens, James
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Dobson, Ray
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Doig, Peter
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)


Buchan, Norman
Eadie, Alex
Hannan, William


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Ellis, John
Harper, Joseph


Cant, R. B.
Ensor, David
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)


Carmichael, Neil
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Haseldine, Norman

The generalised assurance which the Minister has given does not go as far as we wish. We attach great importance to the continued and permanent position of the Tip Safety Committee. Its rôle should be specifically provided for in the Bill. We know that the Committee will help the right hon. Gentleman with the regulations, but we consider that there is continuing need for its important work. For those reasons, I advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide on the new Clause.

Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes, 95. Noes, 140.

Henig, Stanley
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
McNamara, J. Kevin
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Hooley, Frank
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Rose, Paul


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William


Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Mallalieu, J. P. W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Rowlands, E.


Howie, W.
Manuel, Archie
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)
Mapp, Charles
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Silverman, Julius


Hunter, Adam
Mendelson, John
Skeffington, Arthur


Hynd, John
Millan, Bruce
Small, William


Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Spriggs, Leslie


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Thomas, Rt. Hin. George


Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


Judd, Frank
Moyle, Roland
Thornton, Ernest


Kenyon, Clifford
Murray, Albert
Urwin, T. W.


Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Newens, Stan
Varley, Eric G.


Lawson, George
Ogden, Eric
Watkins David (Consett)


Leadbitter, Ted
O'Malley, Brian
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)


Lestor, Miss Joan
Orme, Stanley
Whitaker, Ben


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Oswald, Thomas
Whitlock, William


Lomas, Kenneth
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Loughlin, Charles
Palmer, Arthur
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Luard, Evan
Park, Trevor
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


McCann, John
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


MacColl, James
Price, William (Rugby)



Macdonald, A. H.
Probert, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Mackintosh, John P.
Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.
Mr. J. D. Concannon and


Maclennan, Robert
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Mr. Neil McBride.

New Clause 3

CONSULTATION WITH INSPECTORATE OF MINES

Before issuing a notice under section 14 and carrying out remedial operations and works of reinstatement under section 17 of this Act a local authority shall consult with the Inspectorate of Mines.—[Mr. Gibson-Watt.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
We consider this a fundamental matter. The Clause states that when a local authority uses its powers under Clause 14 by issuing a notice to an owner of a disused tip, and under Clause 17 when carrying out remedial operations or works of reinstatement, it shall consult the Inspectorate of Mines.
We underline the importance of the Inspectorate and the need for civil engineering ability all the way through the Bill, and this is entirely in line with the findings of the Aberfan Tribunal. It is important that every local authority, whether it has or has not got the services of a first-class civil engineer on its staff, should be in close touch with the Mines Inspectorate. Both the general public and the owner of any disused tip will have a great deal more confidence in the handling of these matters by local authorities if the Inspectorate is brought in on every occasion. We believe that the Inspectorate must be strengthened by the addition of qualified civil engineers—and

this again is borne out by the findings of the Aberfan Tribunal—and armed with additional statutory powers. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept the Clause, for it includes words used in Recommendation XIII on page 131 of the findings of the Tribunal.

Colonel C. G. Lancaster: This matter was argued at some length in Committee and went to a Division, which turned out to be a close run thing. This was because we felt strongly that a mistake was being made in not bringing the Mines Inspectorate into what is a very technical matter. We are not talking about live but of disused tips. For a civil engineer to be able to give a considered opinion of the conditions and safety of a disused tip is to ask a great deal of him. We used quite a number of long words in Committee, such as soil mechanisation, but this is a matter of specialised knowledge. The Mines Inspectorate has that knowledge, or, if it has not, it can obtain it more readily than anybody else.
There should not be a great deal of difficulty in coming to a conclusion about the ground on which a disused tip was formed. That can be discovered from an Ordnance Survey. The manner in which the tip was formed; the type of consolidation involved in making the tip; the variety of debris tipped there; the amount of effluent which at one time or another was put on to the tip; the dates on which these things happened; the angle


of repose which the tip eventually obtained and the mechanical devices used in the formation of the tip—these are all matters on which the Mines Inspectorate is much more competent to give an opinion on than anybody else.
It is not asking a great deal of the Inspectorate. Some people believe that it might mean a great deal of work for it, but it will not. Local authorities will become concerned about these matters from time to time; an individual mines inspector might be called upon no more than one day in a year. But there will be a time when a local authority—either because it has been advised by other people or because it has seen the situation for itself—becomes concerned about the safety of a disused tip.
I cannot see why, at that moment, there should be any hesitation about calling in the inspector—together with any surveyor or engineer who is available—to give his expert opinion. The inspector's opinion will be much the most valuable. He may be of the opinion that there is no immediate danger, or that the remedial action necessary is of a very slight nature. The local engineer may be of the opinion that a considerable amount of money should be spent when it is not necessary to spend that amount The inspector might come to the conclusion that immediate remedial action should be taken because, for a variety of factors, a disused tip had suddenly become dangerous and there was a chance of a slip, or something of that nature.
I do not think that any of my hon. Friends in Committee were at all impressed with the arguments put forward in opposition to the suggestion. Those arguments did not seem to have either practical good sense behind them or to be reasonable.
A body of expert advice is available, and it could not be in a more handy condition. It is not only to be found at Hobart House; in every region and district a mines inspector is ready and willing to offer technical advice on this very technical matter. No argument was advanced upstairs against this proposition. We were given certain general assurances that it was likely that the mines inspectorate would be invited to take part in these discussions, but we want to go beyond that. The Bill can become a good Act. We may not have

another opportunity for years to discuss matters affecting mines, quarries and tips, and we do not want to let this occasion pass if there is to be any sort of proscription.
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) in this matter. Unless we get a more satisfactory answer than we had upstairs I shall wish, like my hon. Friend, to divide the House on this proposed new Clause.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman accedes to my hon. Friend's request and that local authorities shall have a duty to consult the Inspectorate of Mines. I want to be certain that settling ponds in quarries and similar matters come under the Inspectorate and that the local authorities should have the duty, if this Clause is accepted, to consult with it concerning them.
In my part of Derbyshire, the local authorities would be more than willing to do so and to take its advice. This applies also to china clay mines and the like. I used to be down in the West Country, in Cornwall, where there are a great deal of disused china clay pits. They are a great hazard to the public. I know that the local authorities there would welcome the advice and recommendations of the Inspectorate of Mines. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept this and will confirm that settling and tailing ponds and the like of quarries come under the umbrella, not only of this Clause, but under the umbrella of the whole Bill.

Mr. David Crouch: This Bill is related to the Mines and Quarries Act, 1954, which runs to 120 pages. After the Aberfan disaster the inquiry found that there was no mention in that Act protecting persons outside the employment of the mines against the danger of a tip slide. Another thing which the Inquiry found was that there was very little consultation and consideration by experts, not just those with local authorities, but with the Coal Board, of the possibilities of tip slides, although they are by no means infrequent in South Wales. Paragraph 72 of the Report said:
There was no general apprehension in the National Coal Board regarding tip stability.


We are talking about experts in mining and pit stability. All I say to the Minister is: "Let us put into the Bill a Clause which perfects it and protects the public". It is the public about whom we are talking in referring to disused tips and disused mines, not the experts of the National Coal Board, serviced by a considerable amount of engineering skill. It is local authorities who have to make a decision. I hope that the Minister will recognise that we are really being very constructive on this side of the House and trying to put into the Bill some positive safeguards, such as the whole of the Aberfan Report emphasised. There are many references to this in the Report. Paragraph 7 spoke of
… the dismay that no system regarding pit stability was ever devised or implemented.
This was before Aberfan. All we seek to do is to say to the Government and the Minister: "Please make this a good Bill and enable local authorities to have the best engineering advice to prevent any question of a tip slide causing damage or danger to life and limb."
We ask the Minister to believe that what we are putting forward is a serious recommendation that local authorities must have access to the Inspectorate of Mines and its technical advisers.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I have a most unusual plea to make to my right hon. Friend. I ask him to accept this New Clause. I stressed the importance of giving the local authorities the right to examine tips and control dangers to the tip and so on. I cannot understand why the Minister is objecting to any local authority having access to all and sundry connected with the mining industry, if they can be of use. I am appealing to my right hon. Friend not to be obdurate on this; he is trying to do his best—

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The hon. Gentleman advanced this argument in Committee; then when it came to the vote he ran away. Is the hon. Gentleman tonight trying to convince the House that in the lobbies, if and when we vote on the new Clause, he will join us, or will he repeat his miserable performance?

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Davies: I will not take up time replying to the hon. Gentleman, because

both he and I are known to this House. The attitude of my right hon. Friend in Committee was, at the least, sympathetic, and I lived in hope that he would agree ultimately that the local authority should have access to any information or expert knowledge that might be available. I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept the new Clause. If an hon. Member on this side of the House expresses virtual agreement with anything coming from the Opposition, the Opposition immediately takes exception to it. That is childish. Had I not been taught to read English I would be suspicious of the content and the meaning of the new Clause, but for once in the long years I have been here, perhaps by accident, probably not by design, I find myself in agreement with a new Clause put forward by the Opposition.

Mr. Mason: If the new Clause were accepted, a local authority would be required to consult the Mines Inspectorate before serving a notice on the owner of a disused tip requiring him to carry out remedial operations, or before itself carrying out such operations.
As hon. Gentlemen will remember, both these matters were discussed in Committee, and I gave the assurances which they required. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary also said this:
… the inspectorate will be available and willing to give expert advice when called upon to do so by local authorities who do not have the expertise immediately available to them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 26th November, 1968; c. 105.]
The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) and the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) seem to want those assurances to be repeated in the House in case local authorities interested in them do not peruse the Committee minutes. I have given those assurances, I have no intention of going back on them, and our inspectors will help when they are asked, and do the best they can. This does not mean that it is right, or desirable, that inspectors should be consulted in every case, though clearly their knowledge could be of particular value on recent tips. I have taken note of what the hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) said in Committee and again on Report.
However, the prime concern of the Mines Inspectorate under the Bill is to


deal with the working tips which are part of the mining and quarrying industries and which, as the Aberfan Tribunal pointed out, are the chief source of danger. Part II of the Bill is concerned with tips that have ceased to form part of these industries and which now present a rather different problem. There are many qualified civil engineers with the knowledge and experience of soil mechanics needed to deal with the stability of disused tips, and there is no real reason why a local authority which prefers to use their services should not do so and rely with confidence on their advice. In the end, the local authority will have to make its own decision in the light of the facts revealed by investigations, whether or not it consults the Inspectorate.
With the best will in the world, the help that the inspectors can give is limited by their other duties. It will not be possible, for example, for an inspector to exercise close supervision over extensive remedial operations, and a local authority would be well advised to employ competent people to see a job through. We know that some local authorities; already employ consultants in whom they have every confidence and from whom they can get all the guidance that they require for this sort of operation.
There is an additional objection to consultation with the Inspectorate being required before a local authority could carry out remedial operations itself under Clause 17. Such consultation could involve delay, as I tried to point out in Committee, and the main consideration behind giving local authorities the powers to do work themselves is to enable them to act with the utmost speed in a dangerous situation. If they are required by Statute to consult Her Majesty's Inspectorate before they enter land to carry out remedial operations, or even to make an examination, it will not make sense. The Inspectorate may not be readily available, time will be important, and such a provision will cause unnecessary delay.
The hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde made a reasoned argument in Committee. He talked about disused tips presenting topographical problems, the possibility of changes in water levels having to be considered, questions of soil mechanics and angles of repose which

might arise, the type of soil involved being in question, and so on. Her Majesty's Inspectorate can give valuable opinions on such matters, he said. That is particularly true of the most recent tips, but it would not be true of tips which are many years old. The Inspectorate would have no records. However, there is a power in the Bill for local authorities to chase up the past owners of old, dead tips in order to discover how they were tipped, the type of machinery probably used, and so on. But the Mines Inspectorate would be of limited value for that sort of operation only in the case of recent tips.
The hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) spoke about quarries. If quarries are being worked and there are tips attached to them, they will come within the orbit of the Inspectorate of Mines. In the case of old, dead coal mine tips, it will be for local authorities to seek the advice of the Mines Inspectorate, assuming that they have not the necessary experience and expertise readily available. As I tried to assure the Committee, the Inspectorate will be there to do that sort of work.
The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) and my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. S. O. Davies) referred to those local authorities who have not the necessary civil engineering skills available. They may be authorities of a size which do not have engineers and consultants. In such cases, we shall be able to help. As I said in Committee:
I thought I assured the Committee that Her Majesty's Inspectorate's advice would be available to any local authorities, particularly those that required advice. Many local authorities will not want to go to Her Majesty's Inspectorate. Why should they be hamstrung by having to go to the Inspectorate every time before they enter land to carry out initial surveys or remedial operations? They have their own expertise. Smaller authorities which may want guidance and assistance for initial surveys will have readily available to them Her Majesty's Inspectorate's advice."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 21st November, 1968; c. 94.]
I think that that amply covers what hon. Gentlemen want. I hope, therefore, that they will now consider withdrawing the new Clause.

Mr. Peter Emery: At this hour I wish that I could get up and inform the Minister that his reply had


given us some satisfaction. Unfortunately, we are not satisfied with the position outlined by the right hon. Gentleman. We are glad that he has reinforced on the Floor of the House that the Inspectorate will be available and willing when called upon. But we are saying that it must be called upon before an order is issued. We believe that it is not a position purely of permission, but that it should be written into the Bill that this should take place.
I remind the Minister that after the passage of the Bill it will be possible for county councils to pass on their powers in issuing orders to local authorities. I thought that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) made plain the technical nature of what is involved in much of this work. It is not to be expected that certain civil engineers on smaller local authorities should have the expertise outlined on page 30 of the National Coal Board's publication, Soil Tip Management: the concept of soil creep, fragmental slides, detritus slides and rock slides. This is not part and parcel of the normal work of a borough civil engineer. Therefore, it is possible that, being pushed by local authorities to take action immediately, an engineer may not have the specialist knowledge before an order is made. Therefore, it is no argument for the Minister to say that, by having to go to the Inspectorate, this might delay an order. The mining industry knows how readily available inspectors are. They are available at more or less half a day's notice, if necessary. Therefore, it is a complete non sequitur to suggest that by enforcing consultation with the Inspectorate we may occasion any delay.

I feel strongly that it is essential, as indeed the Western Mail suggested, that if it was not to be the Inspectorate of Mines, a national agency should be set up to deal with this matter. I think perhaps that that is going a bit far, but I believe that that paper would back us in suggesting that the body which now exists should have written into the Bill the essential need to be consulted before an order is made.

I take the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) as being fair in what he said. He has explained that he hoped that, by supporting the Government in Committee on this matter because they seemed reasonable then, they would have a change of heart by Report stage. It appears that the Government have not had a change of heart. I had hoped that hon. Members representing mining areas would have listened to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, because he made it clear that if we divide the House he will have no alternative but to come with us, even though it is against his normal and natural bent.

We feel strongly about this matter. It is essential that any person having an order served upon him should know that the greatest technical knowledge has been consulted.

I say no more. I believe that the answer given by the Minister was quite inadequate. Therefore, I must urge my hon. Friends to divide the House on this matter.

Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 94, Noes 135.

Murton, Oscar
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Nabarro, sir Gerald
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Ward, Dame Irene


Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Russell, Sir Ronald
Weatherill, Bernard


Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Scott, Nicholas
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Nott, John
Scott-Hopkins, James
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Osborn, John (Hallam)
Sharples, Richard
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Page, Graham (Crosby)
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Worsley, Marcus


Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
Sinclair, Sir George
Wright, Esmond


Percival, lan
Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)
Wylie, N. R.


Pounder, Rafton
Smith, John (London & W'minster)
Younger, Hn. George


Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Stodart, Anthony



Pym, Francis
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Mr. Jasper More and


Renton, Rt. Hn. David
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Mr. Reginald Eyre.


Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon






NOES


Abse, Leo
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Gregory, Arnold
Mendelson, John


Alldritt, Walter
Grey, Charles (Durham)
Millan, Bruce


Ashton, joe (Bassetlaw)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Miller, Dr. M. S.


Atkins, Ronaid (Preston, N.)
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Beaney, Alan
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Murray, Albert


Bidwell, Sydney
Hannan, William
Newens, Stan


Binns, John
Harper, Joseph
Ogden, Eric


Bishop, E. S.
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
O'Malley, Brian


Blackburn, F.
Haseldine, Norman
Orme, Stanley


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Henig, Stanley
Oswald, Thomas


Booth, Albert
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Hooley, Frank
Palmer, Arthur


Braddock, Mr. E. M.
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Park, Trevor


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Howie, w.
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Buchan, Norman
Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)
Price, William (Rugby)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Probert, Arthur


Cant, R. B.
Hunter, Adam
Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.


Carmichael, Neil
Hynd, John
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Coe, Denis
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Rose, Paul


Crawshaw, Richard
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Rowlands, E.


Dalyell, Tarn
Judd, Frank
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Davidson, Arthur (Accrlngton)
Kenyon, Clifford
Slikin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Silverman, Julius


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lawson, George
Skeffington, Arthur


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Leadbitter, Ted
Small, William


Dempsey, James
Lestor, Miss Joan
Spriggs, Leslie


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Lewie, Ron (Carlisle)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George


Dickens, James
Lomas, Kenneth
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


Dobson, Ray
Loughlin, Charles
Thornton, Ernest


Doig, Peter
Luard, Evan
Urwin, T, W.


Eadie, Alex
McBride, Neil
Varley, Eric G.


Ellis, John
McCann, John
Watkins, David (Consett)


Ensor, David
MacColl, James
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Macdonald, A. H.
Whitaker, Ben


Fernyhough, E.
Mackintosh, John P.
whitlock, William


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Maclennan, Robert
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
McNamara, J. Kevin
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Forrester, John
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)



Fowler, Gerry
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brlgg)




Mailalieu, J. P. W.(Huddersfieid, E.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Freeson, Reginald
Manuel, Archie
Mr. J. D. Concannon and


Gardner, Tony
Mapp, Charles
Mr. Ioan L. Evans.

Clause 4

NOTIFICATION OF BEGINNING AND ENDING OF TIPPING OPERATIONS

Amendment made: No. 1 in page 4, line 22, leave out Clause 4.—[Mr. Mason.]

Clause 5

TIPPING RULES

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I beg to move, Amendment No. 3, in page 5, line 24, after 'regulation', insert:
'under this Part of this Act and under the Reservoirs Act 1930'.
We have tabled the Amendment to ensure that in his tipping rules the Minister includes rules concerning the


liquids mentioned in Clause 2(1), remembering that liquids have sometimes caused tip failures. This occurred at Tymawr in South Wales, as mentioned in the Report of the tribunal, and Williamsthorpe is another case in point. The Central Electricity Generating Board has accepted the principle that the 1930 Reservoirs Act applies to lagoons associated with the disposal of pulverised fuel, known as "fly ash". We should like the Minister to state this Bill's relationship to the Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act in regard to mine and quarry lagoons and dams.
This matter has been exercising the minds of a panel of the Institution of Civil Engineers which has produced revisions to the Bill in its report on reservoir safety. This was published in 1966 and up to date no action has been taken on it. The report, which no doubt the Minister has in his possession, asks in paragraph 27, that certain changes should be made. The importance of this is underlined in paragraph 70 of the Aberfan tribunal report which quotes the researches of Sir Andrew Bryan, previously Chief Inspector of Mines, into safety legislation throughout the world. It is reported that only two countries had legislation dealing with this matter. One, South Africa, referred particularly to slime dams. I shall not go into a dissertation on slime dams, but I ask the Minister, in considering this Amendment, to give us the assurances for which we asked and to tell us how this Bill is associated with the Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. Reginald Freeson): I can give certain general assurances, but the Amendment as it stands would not serve a useful purpose because the Regulations under the 1930 Reservoirs Act do not provide for regulations with which tipping rules could possibly conflict. The Regulations under that Act prescribe the forms which can be used for certain certificates and applications for inclusion in the panel of engineers to inspect reservoirs under the Act. They do not apply to lagoons resulting from mine and quarry wastes because such lagoons are not designed to store water for future use. They are used only for waste matter which settles out

and water which is drained away, not stored for future use. The Regulations cannot be conflicted with and therefore this Amendment would not be meaningful.
Part I of the Bill provides ample powers to cover the siting, construction and maintenance of lagoons in the regulations to be made. These will be made after fullest consultation with the Tip Safety Advisory Committee. Disused lagoons, distinct from those actively in use, will be covered by guidance notes prepared by the Committee. Part II, under which the notes will be issued, gives local authorities what powers they need to inspect and initiate remedial action.
For those reasons I hope that it will be accepted that there is no point in having the Amendment written into the Bill, and that in any case the kind of assurances that I have indicated will cover the point that is worrying the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman referred to certain recommendations with regard to the panel of civil engineers, which was dealt with in the Tribunal Report. In addition to what I have said specifically on the Amendment, I would say on that that the Tip Safety Advisory Committee has studied and is studying the report in question and will take full account of it when preparing the advice on regulations and the guidance notes for the purposes covered by the Bill.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: If I may speak again by leave of the House, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for the assurances that he has given.
As to the remarks that I made about the recommendations on reservoir safety, I would make clear that the recommendations were produced in 1966. They were no part of the Aberfan Tribunal. It is a very small point, it is true, but the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that this is to a large extent dealt with under Part I of the Bill, and what he said about the Tip Safety Advisory Committee certainly reinforces his general assertion.
Having heard the hon. Gentleman's assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5

TIPPING RULES

Mr. Crouch: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 5, line 25, at end insert—
(6) Regulations shall pay attention to care and consolidation of the tip during its active life.
In Committee the Minister referred to Part I and its first sentence, in Clause 1(1):
Every tip to which this Part of this Act applies shall be made and kept secure.
The object of Clause 5, as I see it, is to add to that general and good intention. In moving the Amendment I seek to tell the Minister that we do not feel that there is sufficient instruction in this Clause about the maintenance and security of the tip during its active life. We feel that it is necessary and would be better to have an addition to this part of the Clause about care and consolidation of the tip during its active life.
The whole tenor of the Aberfan Tribunal Export was that insufficient instructions were left on the Statute Book to remind managers and owners of pits about the need for protection of tips. A great deal of legislation exists for the protection of people working underground in mines, but very little exists for the protection of people from the danger that could arise from movement or "slide" of tips—and Aberfan has shown that such danger exists. Luckily such occurrences have been few and far between, but we know that they can be very tragic once they occur. Slides have occurred in the past with no damage to life or limb, and it is because of that that we have not had legislation before now.
The Clause would be improved and the whole Bill would be better constructed if we made sure that there was a provision for safeguarding the tip during its active life. Such safeguarding of care and consolidation is a very necessary part of legislation, and it would be a very necessary reminder. It is not enough for the tipping rules under Clause 5(1) to say that the owner of the quarry shall make rules. It is not sufficient to provide, as is provided in subsection (2):
Tipping rules shall comply with such requirements with respect to the form thereof …

It is not sufficient to provide, as is provided in subsection (3):
If, with respect to any tipping rules for the time being in force, an inspector is of opinion that the rules require modification in any particular, he may serve on the manager of the mine concerned … a notice …
An additional requirement of care and consolidation is necessary.
In Committee the Minister was very sympathetic to our case. I suspect that in the intervening period he will have been advised by his Department not to accept the Amendment. I should be sorry if he has been so guided by his advisers. In Committee he said many things to indicate that he wanted to see such requirements written into the regulations. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will bear in mind these words of the Minister's:
I give an assurance that we shall try to deal with care and consolidation during the active life of the tip through regulations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 19th November, 1968; c. 33–4.]
We believe that something more than regulations is necessary. In view of the disasters which have occurred, the Bill should be tightened by the addition of this requirement.

Mr. Freeson: I am a little baffled by the way the Amendment is worded, although I recognise the hon. Gentleman's intention. He ended, as I understood him, by saying that it was not necessary to deal with the matter by way of regulations. The Amendment refers to regulations paying attention to care and consolidation, not to tipping rules. I do not want to draw too fine a point, because there are other aspects of the wording which read a little curiously.

The Amendment would be particularly inappropriate in this Clause, which deals with tipping rules and not the regulations which will generally govern the tipping rules. Tipping regulations will not be, and should not be, written in detail, because conditions will vary from locality to locality. What is important is that managers of mines and quarries shall so make their rules as not in any way to conflict with the regulations which will be drafted.

Putting aside my curiosity about the wording, the Amendment is not necessary, because the regulations will be made by the Minister under Clause 1, which will


cover provision for the security of tips. Part I could not operate effectively, nor could the Inspectorate enforce the provisions of the Bill adequately, unless Regulations were made covering these matters. Their exact form will require careful study. I repeat that the regulations will be drafted after the fullest consultation with the Tip Safety Advisory Committee and on the basis of the information and views which the Committee expresses to the Minister. They will not specify the tipping rules in detail because of the inevitable variation, but the Bill requires that the tipping rules shall not conflict with what is set down in the regulations ultimately. The intention is agreed, but the wording is curious. In any case, the Amendment is not necessary and I hope that it will not be pressed.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 9

PENALTY FOR OFFENCES RELATING TO TIPS TO WHICH PART I APPLIES

Mr. Freeson: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 7, line 44, at beginning insert
'and the act or omission which constituted the contravention was of such a nature that it impaired, or might in the opinion of the court have been expected to impair, the security of the tip.'

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): We may discuss at the same time the following two further Amendments:
No. 6, in page 7, line 47, at end insert:
'so long as such imprisonment is limited to offences where there was a risk of death, serious injury, or danger to a person'.
No. 7, in page 8, line 1, leave out from 'any' to 'subsection' in line 2 and insert 'contravention falling within'.

Mr. Freeson: Amendment No. 5 has broadly the same objective as the Opposition Amendment No. 6. It implements an undertaking given by my right hon. Friend in Committee. It was strongly argued by the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) and several other hon. Members that imprisonment was too severe a penalty for contraventions likely to lead to danger to property only, and that only where there was a risk of death or injury to persons should someone be liable at law to such a heavy penalty.
My right hon. Friend then explained that the Bill did nothing to safeguard property, that it was designed for offences affecting people, but he would consider changing the Bill, if necessary, to make this clear. Hence this Amendment tonight. It is difficult to put over the main point at issue because the dividing line between danger to property and the potentiality of danger to people, in a situation in which one is seeking to deal with possible or prospective danger before it occurs, introduces difficulties of terminology. That is what gave rise to the discussion in Committee and to the need for further discussion now.
The Aberfan Tribunal reported that all tips are dangerous. Part I treats them as such by requiring that they
shall be made and kept secure".
It follows that any act or omission which caused or was likely to cause a tip to become insecure should be treated as a danger to people. This is the essential point.

Our Amendment is framed with that object in mind. A person found guilty of a contravention which might prejudice the security of a tip and thereby endanger people may be punished by imprisonment. On the other hand, offences such as failure to post notices of regulations in premises and the like would be matters for the court to consider as suitable for a fine.

We cannot go all the way with the argument presented in Committee. I hope that the House accepts that we have by our Amendment met the undertaking which the Minister gave to try to clarify the position further, with the principle in mind that our concern is to prevent a potential danger to people. Liability to imprisonment as a punishment for conduct leading to such a danger must, therefore, stay.

Mr. Emery: I welcome the Government's Amendment, but my hon. Friends and I are still in some difficulty here. Our view is that the punishment of imprisonment should take effect only where there is the risk of death, serious injury or danger to a person. In other words, we want to limit imprisonment to offences against persons. Imprisonment should not be awarded for endangering


property. Our Amendment No. 6 would have that result.
11.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary has argued that it is the intention of his Amendment to do approximately the same thing, but my interpretation is different, and I have had some lawyers read it too. The subsection says:
Where any person is convicted of an offence under the principal Act by virtue of—

(a) a contravention of any provision of this Part of this Act, or
(b) an act or omission which, by virtue only of a provision of this Part of this Act, constitutes a contravention of any provision of the principal Act or of regulations, …"
and we then have inserted:
and the act or omission which constituted the contravention was of such a nature that it unpaired, or might in the opinion of the court have been expected to impair, the security of the tip.
The Bill goes on to say that the person may then be convicted, and a fine or imprisonment not exceeding three months imposed.
The Parliamentary Secretary has argued that if the security of the tip is impaired this must be, by his definition, a danger to persons. I cannot accept that. In the report on tip management one reads time and time again of tips becoming insecure and moving. There may have been negligence, but until the Aberfan disaster there was never a fatality and in most of these cases there has never even been a risk of danger to person. Therefore, I find it particularly difficult to give the interpretation which the Minister gives us to his Amendment.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to draw his right hon. Friend's attention to what he said at the second sitting of the Committee on 21st November:
I am able to say at this stage that the penalty of imprisonment is designed for offences affecting persons, not for offences affecting property."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 21st November, 1968; c. 53.]
The lawyers in his Department have obviously consicered the Amendment fully, but if they look at it yet again they must admit that the words
might in the opinion of the court have been expected to impair the security of the tip.

do not imply that that must limit imprisonment to cases of danger to persons.
I do not think that I am disclosing any secret when I say that the C.B.I, feels very strongly on the matter. It urges that the Bill be brought into line with Section 155(2) of the 1954 Act, which makes it plain that it is where the safety of any person employed is concerned that imprisonment may be imposed. The C.B.I. would like this to be altered to read the safety of any person, leaving out the word employed. It believes that this is probably the best way of dealing with the matter. I feel that Amendment 6 would be equally suitable.
We shall, of course, examine what the hon. Gentleman said, but we are most concerned that when such a case comes to court the interpretation given by the court is likely not to be the same as that given by the Minister.
We welcome the Government's Amendment, which goes some of the way, but I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at our arguments before the Bill goes to another place. If we could have his assurance that he will do so, we could press on.

Mr. Freeson: On the last point raised by the hon. Gentleman, particularly as my right hon. Friend has not been able to be present for a short while during the hon. Gentleman's remarks, and since it was my right hon. Friend who gave the general undertaking in Committee on this matter, I feel it right to say that of course we shall look carefully at this discussion before the Bill reaches another place.
But in doing so I must be careful not to mislead the House into thinking that we are likely to change our minds, since we have already given the matter very careful thought. Our view is based on the principle I explained earlier. This is that to impair the security of a tip is to create danger to persons. If we have learned nothing else from Aberfan we must surely have learnt the importance of that.
We think that it would be wrong, where the security of a tip was put in peril, that the offender should escape because, fortuitously, there was not an actual case of danger to people—perhaps because they happened not to be present


at the time, or because no vehicles happened to be passing at the time, for example.
It remains a fact that, if one imperils the safety of a tip, one is imperils people's lives, and we have based our Amendment on that principle. We feel that we have been as flexible as we could be on this issue with our Amendment. Amendment No. 6 would restrict the position of a court should an offence of this nature take place. These are our views but the matter will be looked at again before the Bill reaches another place. I hope, however, that I have made our present position clear.

Colonel Lancaster: I am not altogether happy as to whether we are not perhaps allowing ourselves to be affected too much by the Aberfan disaster. Obviously, there was an immensely emotional content in that ghastly disaster, but we should not frame an Act of Parliament because of something which should never have occurred and which was wholly due to the mismanagement of the National Coal Board. To argue that that is ever going to happen again would be wrong. I do not believe that it will ever happen again.
My mind goes back to the question of the control of tips. It will always be a difficult question. Tips, for a number of reasons, tend to slide to a certain degree. They tend to exceed the land on which it had originally been arranged that the soil should be deposited. It could be said that every time that happens, if someone is stupid enough to lie down on that piece of ground, there is risk to life and limb. But that is carrying the thing to an absurdity. There is bound to be movement in tips. Anyone who thinks that tips can be made and that there will be no movement in them is not being realistic.
The whole essence of controlling tips was to limit movement so that the least damage would be done. But all movement of tips is not a threat to life and limb. There had never been a fatality from this cause until Aberfan. The movements are not very drastic, although once they start they take a lot of stopping. It happens in a very modulated way.
It can be argued that any movement carries a risk to human beings, but that

would bring the matter to an absurdity. It would mean that during the 170 years preceding Aberfan dozens of people would have been going to prison each year for movements which happened despite the best management put into the formation of tips. Tips are apt to move, often in only a minor way but sometimes in a more drastic way than is expected. I cannot believe that the House wants to introduce legislation of that type just because we are discussing this matter after the ghastly tragedy at Aberfan, which was something which I believe will never happen again.
We are getting the matter a little out of perspective. It could be shown that there have been occasions when there has been negligence of a nature which, since a tip was close to a road or a house, might endanger life.
On such occasions those who are negligent must be dealt with in a drastic manner. But the majority of tips are not close to roads or houses. They are sited in the first instance to avoid just those eventualities. But to say that if, every time there is a slip or a movement of the tip, the manager must have hanging over his head the risk of going to prison, is wholly unreasonable.
Although we have tried to tighten up the regulations under the Bill so that it can become a more definite Act, none of us would want to take part in bringing about a situation which, on the face of it, has an element of uncertainty about it. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary will think about the matter in the light of what I have said. Movement is inevitable, and no manager should have hanging over his head the possibility of imprisonment—even though he has used his best endeavours—just because there is some movement of the tip and it can be argued that somebody was on the site or passing it at the time and that he might have been injured or killed. That would be putting an unreasonable strain on managers. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and his Department will give further thought to the matter.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: No. 7, in page 8, line 1, leave out from 'any' to 'subsection' in line 2 and insert 'contravention falling within'.—[Mr. Freeson.]

Clause 13

RIGHT OF ENTRY TO CARRY OUT EXPLORATORY TESTS, ETC.

Mr. Freeson: I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 10, line 21, leave out:
or is likely to become unstable ',

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): With this Amendment we can take Government Amendments Nos. 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 24 and 26.

Mr. Freeson: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The existing provision in Clause 36(2), though not intended as a definition of stability, has come in for a good deal of criticism from civil engineers largely because they construed it as such and it conflicted with their understanding of what constituted stability. An engineer regards a structure as stable only if he has no reason to believe that it is likely to fail in the future. The present words, however, refer only to the present condition of a tip, and the likelihood of failure appears in the operative Clauses, where the phrase "likely to become unstable "is repeatedly used.
The Advisory Committee on Tip Safety has given a good deal of thought to the question and endorses the series of Amendments now proposed. They will define the conditions under which a tip is to be treated as "unstable" for the purposes of Part II of the Bill in a form which will be readily understood and accepted by the engineers who will be responsible in practice for examining tips and recommending remedial operations.
12 m.
These Amendments will also delete the references to "potential failure" in the operative Clauses, since this concept is now covered by the new form of words. The new form of words in Clause 36(2) will make it clear that instability is a condition in which there is reasonable ground for believing that a tip is likely to fail and spill beyond its existing boundaries, such as happend at Aberfan, and remedial operations will be designed to prevent this happening if such a movement of material would constitute, or be likely to constitute, a danger to members of the public.
If the need for a definition of instability is challenged we can point out that the words have been inserted as a guide to the courts, which will have to decide on the justification for remedial operations, about which there may be conflicting evidence. The new words seek to clarify the matter, as do the series of related Amendments.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: In general we welcome the Amendment. What the Minister has decided to do goes some way to meet the feeling of anxiety among civil engineers. There was anxiety about the definition of a stable tip, and the definition was considered to be inadequate. This was shown to be inadequate on page 37, paragraph 71, of the Aberfan Report. These Amendments make the matter more definite.

Amendment No. 24 says that a tip is unstable
if and only if there is, or there is reasonable ground for believing that there is likely to be, such a movement of the refuse which makes up the tip as to cause a significant increase in the area of land covered by the tip".
Can the Minister assure us that his form of words covers all eventualities which might cause a competent engineer grave concern? His new words mean that if the base area of the tip is not increased by slide, the tip shall be treated as stable. Is it not possible that, in a complex of tips, some spoil can shift from one upper tip to a lower one, causing considerable damage, but by virtue of this Amendment, and this form of words, it would still be considered a stable tip? Is the Minister's new criteria adequate? Has his Department any experience of any such an occurrence? I am a bit unhappy about the Amendment and would be grateful if the Minister could say a little more to allay our anxieties.

Mr. Freeson: I will not pursue the illustration because I am not qualified to do so. The new form of words, which seeks to clarify the definition which was queried in Committee and by some civil engineers since, should not be taken as replacing the regulations and the guidance which will be issued after the Tip Safety Advisory Committee have considered the advice on this which they will give to the Minister. The regulations, and subsequently the tip management rules in the light of the regulations,


will lay down the principles of management of the tips. It will be a matter for local authorities and the owners and managers of tips and quarries under the respective Parts of the Act to see that tips are secure and safe. It should not be assumed that we are replacing the intention in the Act to produce regulations and embark upon good practice by the definition which we are seeking to make. It will be for the experts who are called in to advise whether conditions are dangerous, or likely to be dangerous, to members of the public and to the security of the tips.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I do not think that the Minister has quite followed my argument. Amendment No. 24 deals with Part 2 of the Act, disused tips. The movement of material from the top complex to the bottom complex of a tip could be dangerous but, at the same time, the total area covered by the whole complex might not have moved. I am therefore querying the adequacy of the wording of Amendment No. 24. Why has the Minister used this form of words to say that if there is not a significant increase caused by a movement of refuse in the area of land covered by the tip then the tip should be considered to be a stable tip?

Mr. Freeson: It should be recognised that the words are not intended to restrict the conduct of inspectors who may wish to have certain action taken in the tips. If they consider that any movement is dangerous, then they will recommend appropriate action. We are getting into the kind of difficulty we pointed out in Committee. If we were to seek to define these words too closely we would run into other difficulties. We have done the best we can on the advice of the experts of the Tip Safety Advisory Committee. Let us not treat the attempt at definition as a replacement of the responsibility of the authorities concerned, the inspectors who will be called in, or the consultants, to ensure that the conditions are safe. It is not intended to prevent this. The intention is to try to define the matter in law.

Mr. S. O. Davies: My difficulty is with the phrase "reasonable ground for believing", and so on. My long experience of one of the oldest large-scale

coalfields is that where coal has been mined on a large scale every tip is potentially dangerous. Where millions of tons of slurry are tipped on to a steep hillside such as is characteristic of the South Wales mining valleys, in the process of time where coal seams are at a fairly substantial depth subsidence occurs some time before it becomes obvious, and the tip becomes a menace to people living nearby.
I know that I am asking my right hon. Friend to do a difficult job, but, when the regulations are drafted, I hope that generalities like "reasonable grounds", and so on, will not be too conspicuous in them. Any regulations should be definite. Where tips stand on dangerous inclines under which millions of tons of coal have been mined, they are definitely dangerous. There is no gainsaying that. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not use obscure phrases in drafting regulations. The dangers have been made abundantly clear, and I hope that the Government will accept the facts.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Emery: I beg to move Amendment No. 10, in page 10, line 28, leave out 'twenty-four hours' and insert 'at least forty-eight hours'.
In Clause 13, duly authorised persons are given the right of entry for the purpose of investigation, for the purpose of carrying out any operations, and for the purpose of inspecting any operations after they have been carried out. For any of those purposes, they have the right of entry once they have demanded admission by notice in writing. As the Bill stands, such notice must be given at least 24 hours before entry.
The Amendment in no way limits the right of entry in an emergency. If there is an emergency, the right of entry by an authorised person can be immediate at all times. We do not want to stop that, and in fact it is essential to the working of the Bill.
However, we feel that an owner has the right to receive more than 24 hours' notice that it is intended to carry out an inspection or an operation. We argued in Committee that, under Clause 13(1)(b), proof of notice is proof of posting, but that, with the state of the post at the moment, an authorised person could


arrive before the letter if the required notice is only 24 hours. We suggested that it should be 72 hours, but the Government said that that was too long. We hope that they will have had second thoughts.
We believe that 48 hours is a fairly short time. We see that owners or their agents may well want to make arrangements to have a representative present when anyone is coming to carry out any of the three purposes listed in the Clause. In view of that, we feel that we are not asking for too much if we urge the Government to extend the notice from 24 hours to 48 hours. I hope that the Government will see the sweet reasonableness of our case and, for once, feel able to accept an Amendment from this side.

12.15 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Arthur Skeffington): To save time, may I say that we are prepared to accept the Amendment to extend the period to 48 hours.
In fairness to the argument that I deployed in Committee, the one ground of concern was where it might be thought that operations were likely of themselves to cause instability and, therefore, 24 hours was a reasonable time. I can assure the House that, in accepting the Amendment, we do not think that there is any danger, because in practically every case, as far as we can see, such operations would have had planning permission at some stage. Consequently, the authorities would know what sort of operations were going on. Therefore, the potential danger that I foresaw in practice is not likely to arise, and we have pleasure in accepting the Amendment.

Mr. Emery: I thank the Minister for his brief speech and his acceptance of the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I beg to move Amendment No. II, in page 10, line 29, at end insert:
'and to the owner or to his representative'.
The arguments on this Amendment have already been gone over in Committee to a large extent. It concerns the point that notice should be given not

only to the occupier, but to the owner and, in the owner's absence, to his representative.
Many who know the South Wales valleys—and this probably applies to other parts of the country—know that owners of ground which has tips on it are not always living in the vicinity, but they almost always have a representative—probably a local lawyer or agent. Therefore, we think it fair and reasonable that the owner, or his representative, as well as the occupier, should have notice given to him.

Mr. Skeffington: I am sorry that I cannot be as forthcoming on this Amendment as on the previous one. The argument that we advanced and explored at length in Committee still stands. We think that this would be impractical in many cases and certainly might cause serious delay.

The question arises: what is meant by "owner"? It is not just a simple owner of a freehold. If one looks at the definition in Clause 36(3) it is extensive. It covers all sorts of other interests, except two which are specially excluded. There is not much point in informing the owner at this stage, because this is purely an investigation to see what is happening. His interests are not imperilled. There is a special provision in Clause 14.

It may be that the hon. Gentleman would like to know whether the undertaking that I gave in Committee about this matter being dealt with administratively still stands. It does still stand. I am pleased to confirm that the appropriate Ministers, in their circulars, will draw the attention of local authorities to the desirability of acquainting the owner, or his representative, where this can be done. This means that there will not be the kind of delay and the perils which might arise if, by Statute, there were to be exhaustive attempts to find perhaps many owners in certain cases, or their representatives.

I think that the hon. Gentleman will feel that he has achieved something if I repeat the undertaking that I gave in Committee.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I thank the Minister for his assurance that this will be done by administrative means. We feel that by airing the matter again on Report and the Minister underlining what he


said upstairs, the point is fully covered. I, therefore, beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: No. 12, in page 11, line 2, leave out:
or may be about to become ".—[Mr. Freeson.]

Clause 14

NOTICE REQUIRING OWNER OF DISUSED TIP TO CARRY OUT REMEDIAL OPERATIONS

Amendment made: No. 13, in page 11, line 27, leave out:
or is likely to become ".—[Mr. Freeson.]

Mr. Freeson: I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 12, line 5, at end insert:
'and any other person who, to the knowledge of the local authority, has an estate or interest, otherwise than as a mortgagee, in that land'.
Under the provisions as at present drafted, occupiers, but not owners, of neighbouring land receive notices of remedial operations to be carried out by the owner of the disused tip on that neighbouring land. The purpose of this Amendment is to provide that in such a case the owner of the neighbouring land and others with an interest in it also receive a copy of the notice served on the owner of the disused tip. By this Amendment, everyone who could reasonably expect to be informed when remedial operations are to be carried out will be so informed and will be told of the nature and extent of these operations. In the light of the discussion we had in Committee there need be no discussion or controversy on what I am offering the House tonight.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Emery: I beg to move Amendment No. 15, in page 12, line 13, after 'tip' insert:
'or within six years before the passage of this Act whichever is the shorter'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): With this Amendment we will discuss Amendment No. 18, in Clause 19, page 17, line 36, at end insert:
'or within six years before the passage of this Act whichever is the shorter'.

Mr. Emery: This is one of the most important Amendments we are to consider tonight, because it deals almost entirely with retrospection in the Bill. It is always the case that Oppositions, whether Socialist or Conservative, speak long and with much passion when they see retrospection creeping into legislation. At this late hour, I do not intend to delay the House with the traditional arguments heard so many times from this Despatch Box, but we on this side take very unkindly to the fact that as the Bill stands, retrospection is for 12 years back from any specific action being taken to obtain compensation or damages from a previous owner or anybody concerned in the ownership of a tip.
I argued in Committee with considerable force, I hope, that an owner may six years ago have taken every reasonable and proper course to ensure that the tip at that time was kept stable, and yet if the ownership of the tip is changed—perhaps the owner has died and the tip has gone to his estate or to his daughter who has had nothing to do with the tip at all—six years after this occurrence the owner can be called into court and asked to make a contribution to remedial action. That seems quite wrong to me.
In Committee we suggested that while we accepted that responsibility should be carried for 12 years once the Bill became law, we did not see why it was right and proper to take this course of retrospection at this stage purely for the sake of the Bill. Our Amendment was therefore to do away with retrospection altogether. This was defeated. We now come to the House to urge the Government to carry retrospection back for only six years, the normal time of legal limitation. We realise that there are instances in which limitation has been carried further, but we believe in this case that six years is as long as is necessary.
The Parliamentary Secretary said in Committee:
The retrospection which concerns us is implicit in the nature of the situation with which we are trying to deal.
I took the Parliamentary Secretary up on this matter and suggested that nothing was implicit in the situation about retrospection other than the retrospection which was being introduced by the Bill. In other words, the Bill was defining the


need for retrospection where no retrospection existed previously. At that point the hon. Gentleman became somewhat annoyed with me and said:
I should not have my words played around with. I did not say that retrospection was implicit in the situation.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 26th November, 1968; c. 121–5.]
That is what the Parliamentary Secretary said, [interruption.] I am explaining the position. Earlier on that occasion I said that we could refer to HANSARD later to see precisely what the hon. Gentleman had said, and I apologised to him if I had misinterpreted what he had said.
It must be apparent that retrospection does not exist except by the passage of the Bill. While we can understand the Government wanting to find means of recouping money that might have to be spent, we do not necessarily believe that it is correct for them to do that purely by means of retrospective legislation. I will analyse the four reasons that the Parliamentary Secretary gave in favour of this course and why he felt that 12 years was necessary. He said:
First, the results of work on tips are often slow to appear. …
We accept that, but why 12 years? His argument could be applied to any period and there seems to be nothing to favour 12 years. He went on:
… secondly, it is a reasonable assumption that if a tip has been stable for 12 years or so the causes of instability are likely to be of recent origin. …
I have asked a number of persons concerned with coalmining about this and they have told me that that might be true, but that it is just as likely to be untrue. One can fairly say of that argument that it is just as likely not to be the case. The hon. Gentleman continued:
… thirdly, it is desirable to limit liabilities which would otherwise continue indefinitely.…
It could be argued in common law that if a person was in grave negligence in carrying out any action to ensure stability in the past, before this legislation, he could be held liable. I therefore do not see the need for retrospection if there is proof of gross negligence. Under the Bill gross negligence does not have to be proved; only ownership. There seems to be no advantage in limiting gross negligence to 12 years. Thus, that

argument of the Parliamentary Secretary falls. He went on:
… fourthly, the 12-year period follows in line with previous legislation. The Limitation Act of 1939, which applies in England and Wales, lays down a similar period ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 26th November, 1968; c. 125–6.]
The hon. Gentleman's final argument—that the Limitation Act allows a period of 12 years to be applied—is the weakest of all. Because something has been done in the past does not mean that it should be continued. Why carry forward the errors of the past, with extended retrospection, merely for the benefit of the Bill?
I do not believe that many such cases will arise or that the courts will be calling on past owners to a great extent. However, the type of case which worries me is the one where ownership of a tip has passed—has perhaps been inherited, changed or even sold—and where the present owners have had no part in the management of the tip; yet they can still be held liable under the Bill until 1981. That seems a strange situation, which the House should deplore.
I am not particularly happy about our Amendment, which limits the period only to six years, but it is more reasonable and falls in with current practice. If the Government are set on having some form of retrospection, six years would cover all the points the Minister argued. As a matter of grace it would be good sense for the Government to accept our Amendment. That would do the Government no harm—indeed, it would do them some good by showing that the arguments used by the Parliamentary Secretary in Committee, when he said that we were all opposed to retrospection—[Interruption.] I could quote them. It would show that he was carrying out part of the desire by cutting the period from 12 years to six.

12.30 a.m.

Mr. Freeson: When we discussed this question in Committee, Opposition Members, as well as criticising retrospection, which has been the main burden of the speech by the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) tonight, were also concerned that an owner of a tip, innocent of responsibility for its unsafe condition, might find he was liable for the


cost of remedial operations. This is precisely why the Bill gives powers to the courts to make an order requiring a contribution by a previous owner and anyone who has deposited refuse or caused or contributed to instability within a 12-year period.
It is important not to overlook, as the hon. Member completely overlooked, subsection (4) of Clause 19. This requires a court to have regard to all the circumstances of the case before it, and in particular to certain criteria. If a tip has changed hands six years previously, the cost of remedial work will not be automatically equally shared by the present and former owners. The subsection clearly points out the need for the court to assess culpability. The hon. Member argued as if this was not a matter for the court to decide, but the subsection clearly requires the court to establish that an owner within the previous 12 years was culpable, either wholly or partly responsible for the instability with which the Bill is concerned.

Mr. Emery: Of course I realise that and I have read with great care the whole of Clause 19. The culpability point is made in subsection (4)(a), but that does not stop the courts deciding that someone who is not absolutely culpable but who has had some benefit—perhaps out of the sale or by obtaining the pit—should bear the cost, perhaps not the complete cost or perhaps a shared burden, but a cost. That is not precluded.

Mr. Freeson: The hon. Member has misinterpreted the Bill. Culpability is considered in regard to serving the notice to appear in court. It is the whole purpose of a court action to establish that a person has contributed to the instability of the tip, thereby endangering lives. The subsection clearly specifies that it must be taken alongside the question of the twelve-year period of retrospection, the object being to obtain in whole or in part from people who have been proved to be culpable a contribution towards the cost of the remedial operations required.
The effect of the Amendment would be to restrict present owners' claims before the court on those past owners who have been wholly or partly responsible for the very circumstances which

have brought the matter to court. It is for those reasons, although I may have put them in short terms—I hope I have put them in clear terms—that we stand by the position as at present stated in the Bill.

Mr. Emery: By leave of the House—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are on Report. It is not usual to have the leave of the House in these circumstances. But, by leave of the House, Mr. Emery.

Mr. Emery: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I shall be short. You will realise that this is one of the most important of the Amendments—

Mr. Speaker: That may be so, but we are on Report. This is not the Committee stage.

Mr. Emery: This is one of the most important Amendments with which we are dealing. I find that the answer that has been given adds nothing to that which we received in Committee. I am most concerned that, while the culpability point is listed, this still does not—we are in disagreement about this—ensure that any person who has been in part ownership over 12 years cannot be held liable to make a contribution. I cannot see how on any reading Clause 19 can be interpreted to exclude that. It is specifically because of that that we find that we cannot agree, and I find myself unable to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 15

APPEALS AGAINST NOTICES UNDER S. 14

Amendment made: No. 16, in page 13, line 14, leave out:
'or is likely to become'.—[Mr. Freeson.]

Clause 17

CARRYING OUT OF REMEDIAL OPERATIONS AND WORKS OF REINSTATEMENT BY LOCAL AUTHORITY

Amendment made: No. 17, in page 15, line 25, leave out:
'or may be about to become '.—[Mr. Freeson.)

Clause 24

APPEALS AGAINST DEMANDS UNDER S. 23

Amendment made: No. 19, in page 24, line 35, leave out:
'or was likely to become'.—[Mr. Freeson.]

Clause 31

ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY IN ENGLAND AND WALES

Mr. Freeson: I beg to move Amendment No. 20, in page 29, line 39, leave out subsection (1) and insert the following subsections:
(1) No notice under section 14 may be served in respect of a disused tip if the land on which the tip is situated is ecclesiastical property, but nothing in this subsection affects the powers of a local authority under section 17.
(2) Where under this Part of this Act a document is required or authorised to be given to, or served on, any person as occupier of, or owner of an estate or interest in, any land which is ecclesiastical property, a copy of the document shall be given to or served on the Church Commissioners.
(3) Any compensation payable under section 20 to a person by virtue of his having an estate in fee simple in any land shall, if that land is ecclesiastical property, be paid (where the fee simple is vested in any person other than the Church Commissioners) to them instead of that person.
(4) Any sums paid under subsection (3) to the Church Commissioners with reference to any land shall, if the land is not consecrated, be applied by them for the purposes for which the proceeds of a sale by agreement of the fee simple in the land would be applicable under any enactment or Measure authorising such a sale, and, if the land is consecrated, be applied by them in such a manner as they may determine.
(5) Where the fee simple in any ecclesiastical property is in abeyance—
(a) it shall be treated for the purposes of this Part of this Act as being vested in the Church Commissioners; and
(b) where, by virtue of paragraph (a) above, the Church Commissioners are owners of land belonging to a benefice and, by virtue of their ownership of that land, are under a liability to pay any sum under this Part of this Act, either as owner of a disused tip or as a contributory, their liability shall be met from, and shall not exceed the total of, the sums held by them for that benefice.
(6) Where subsection (5) does not apply but a liability to pay any sum under this Part of this Act falls on any person, either as owner

of a disused tip or as a contributory, by virtue of there being vested in him the fee simple in land belonging to a benefice, the Church Commissioners may apply any sums held by them for that benefice in discharging the whole or any part of that liability.

Mr. Speaker: I suggest that with this we take Amendment No. 22.

Mr. Freeson: This complex and highly technical Clause, which the Amendments are designed to put right, deals with problems created by the exceptional legal position of the Established Church in England, and another Amendment deals with Scotland. Broadly, the purpose is to amend it first to enable the provisions of the Bill to be applied when a living is vacant and, second, to enable the Church Commissioners to devote funds towards payments which under the Bill may be due to incumbents and for them to receive compensation when church property is affected by remedial operations. It is unlikely that the Clause will be used since the number of tips on church property must be very few. The House can take it that the Clause has been revised after consultation with the Church Commissioners.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: It is happy to think of the Minister and the Church Commissioners getting down together and hatching out this very long-winded Amendment, with which we entirely agree. Whether the Minister's agents drafted the Amendment or the Church Commissioners, I do not mind very much. We on this side agree with the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: No. 21, in page 29, line 43, after 'In', insert:
'the foregoing provisions of'.
No. 22, in line 43, leave out from 'section' to end of line 44 and insert:
'"benefice" means an ecclesiastical benefice of the Church of England and "ecclesiastical property" means land belonging to a benefice'.
No. 23, in page 30, line 3, at end insert:
() Subsection (1) applies in relation to Scottish church land as it applies to ecclesiastical property within the meaning of subsection (7).
In this subsection, 'Scottish church land' means any land being or forming part of a church of the Church of Scotland, or the site of such a church, or the manse, glebe, churchyard or burial ground appertaining to such a church.—[Mr. Freeson.]

Clause 36

INTERPRETATION OF PART II

Amendment made: No. 24, in page 33, line 2, leave out from 'as' to end of line 10 and insert:
unstable if and only if there is, or there is reasonable ground for believing that there is likely to be, such a movement of the refuse which makes up the tip as to cause a significant increase in the area of land covered by the tip'.—[Mr. Freeson.]

Clause 38

SHORT TITLE, CITATION, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT

Amendment made: No. 25, in page 34, line 40, leave out '31 '.—[Mr. Freeson.]

Schedule 2

PROVISIONS APPLICABLE WHERE LOCAL AUTHORITY CARRIES OUT REMEDIAL OPERATIONS ON DISUSED TIP OF WHICH IT IS OWNER

Amendment made: No. 26, in page 36, line 14, leave out 'or is likely to become'.—[Mr. Freeson.]

Order for Third Reading read.—[Queen's consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified]

12.43 a.m.

Mr. Mason: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I am confident that this is a better Bill as the result of discussion in Standing Committee and the Amendments made on Report. I am grateful to all those, both inside and outside the House, who have made constructive suggestions.
Many of the criticisms and suggestions that have been made to me, more particularly those affecting Part I, which deals with the working tips, and those which are still part of the mining and quarrying industries, concern matters such as the siting of tips and the form and content of tipping rules which can and will be covered by the Regulations which I shall make in due course. The suggestions will not be overlooked when I come to make the Regulations which, like those made under the Mines and Quarries Act, 1954, will fill in the practical details

without which the statutory control over tips and tipping is incomplete.
I shall have the benefit of the advice of my Advisory Committee on Tip Safety on these regulations, and I shall consult other interested parties, as has long been customary in the case of Regulations under the 1954 Act. The Regulations will in due course be laid before Parliament.
Now a word about the main changes that have been made since the Bill was introduced. Clause 4 has been completely redrafted, and I am sure that we have now got right the periods of notice to be given when tipping operations begin, end or are resumed. We have also amended Clause 9 and limited the penalty of imprisonment to acts or omissions which would endanger the security of a tip. Imprisonment is clearly justified for such offences, since it is on the security of a tip that the safety of those in its vicinity depends.
We have also succeeded in making Part II clearer and simpler, notably by the amendment of Clause 36(2), and the consequential Amendments linked with it. The interpretation Clause now sets out clearly the conditions under which a tip is to be treated as unstable in terms which do not offend the professional susceptibilities of civil engineers, many of whom had difficulty with the original provision, however adequate it may have been from a legal point of view.
1 am particularly grateful to the Tips Committee for the help it has given with the Amendments to the Bill and for the progress it has been able to make with the guidance notes it is preparing to help local authority engineers with the initial inspection of disused tips. These guidance notes will be finalised within the next few days and should be available to local authorities well before Part II of the Bill as enacted comes into operation. They will provide a simple and economical procedure for tip inspection which can be brought into use without delay.
The Tips Committee has been busy. It has already met six times—four times since the Second Reading debate on 7th November, 1968—and will be meeting again in a few days. It has visited a coal tip complex in the East Midlands and china clay tips in Cornwall and Devon, and plans to visit South Wales


towards the end of March to study the special conditions there. This does not mean that the Committee members, as individuals, are ignorant of tipping problems in South Wales. Several members and two of the Committee's assessors have intimate knowledge of conditions there. It will then be in a position to give me expert guidance backed by first-hand experience in the preparation of the Regulations which I shall make under the Bill.
The Committee has now received from the National Coal Board a draft code of practice on tipping operations. The hon. Members for Honiton (Mr. Emery) and for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) have waved this document about. It is, indeed, an impressive and most valuable piece of work, embodying the results of all the Coal Board's experience and research to date. The Board and its advisers have clearly put in a lot of effort in order to make it a thorough and comprehensive document. The Committee will wish to study it carefully both as a background to the regulations on which it will be advising me and with a view to issuing guidance to cover tipping problems generally.
The Committee has in hand also a survey of the research on problems related to tips which is in progress or intended, and has written round to universities and technical colleagues as well as to other bodies of many kinds at home and abroad which may have something to contribute.
This is a full programme and makes heavy demands on busy people. I feel sure that the House would not wish me to let the occasion pass without my paying a tribute to the generosity with which Mr. Bullen and his team of experts are devoting their time, energy and professional skills to the subject of tip safety.
The Bill has a simple objective—to prevent another Aberfan. But in order to do justice to the interests of the public, of management and workers, and of those on whom the costs will fall, its provisions are complex. Part I needs the backing of extensive Regulations, as I have already said, and will be part of the mines and quarries safety legislation. Part II, which is really a separate Bill designed to deal with the accumulated debris of centuries, is virtually complete in itself. Expensive powers are given to

local authorities, but they are made subject to elaborate safeguards; there is even a measure of retrospection to protect the interests of owners who are not responsible for the dangerous condition of their tips.
The State, too, will play its part, since the grant provisions of Clause 25 have been widely drawn to make sure that safety is not prejudiced because owners or local authorities lack the resources needed. But, most important of all, the Bill creates conditions in which owners have every incentive to keep their tips safe, and local authorities have powers to keep them up to the mark, so that slides should be prevented, not merely cleared up.
The Bill was given a warm welcome when it was introduced. Both sides of the House were in full agreement that it was urgently needed. It has moved quickly through Committee, thanks to the helpful co-operation of hon. Members opposite, and I hope that it will be equally well received in another place. It will also give general satisfaction to local authorities which have felt the lack of adequate powers to deal with dangerous tips in the past. The public at large will, no doubt, be equally relieved that the spoil that mines and quarries have spewed out of the earth through the centuries can, in future, be subject to proper examination and supervision backed up by adequate statutory powers. H.M. Inspectors and local authorities will have ample powers in their own spheres to act quickly in case of danger and will use them. I have no doubt that those who live and work in the shadow of tips in Wales, of bings in Scotland, muck stacks in Yorkshire or spoil heaps elsewhere in England will feel easier when this House has done its part and made the provision needed to ensure that tips are tackled and tamed.

12.49 a.m.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The Minister has given us a short but lucid speech in commending the Third Reading. We all know the reason for the Bill. The graves on the mountain above Aberfan are a lasting reminder of why it was necessary. On Second Reading, we on this side gave an assurance that we would not delay the Bill. Four days only in Committee, as the Minister was gracious


to say, was proof of that. We believe that we have caused improvement to be made in the Bill, and we think that further improvements should be made in another place. There have been some major matters on which we have disagreed with the Minister—the Tip Safety Committee, the Mines Inspectorate, the question of retrospection and one or two other things. On Report, the Parliamentary Secretary said that the Government would look again at the exchange of views over limiting imprisonment for acts against property, though he made no promises. We hope that there may be further changes on that in another place.
My hon. Friends have contributed to the Bill throughout from their experience and knowledge. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden), who has lately taken over responsibility for power matters on this side of the House, was debarred from taking part in Committee, but he has given us all a great deal of good advice, and he spoke tonight on Report. We wish him well in his dealings with the coal industry, as in other power matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) has played an important part throughout the Bill, and in his usual style he left no one in any doubt about his views. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster), with his experience in the coal industry, has given us much practical advice, which we have appreciated, and we have had valuable contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch), Meriden (Mr. Speed) and Poole (Mr. Murton). We can justly claim to have played some part in helping the Government to improve the Bill.
We have, happily, avoided any party differences or recriminations. The back-cloth of the Bill was much too sombre for that. We have sought to aid the Minister in his aim to bring the legislation to this stage. We have often disagreed with the Government view, and the Minister has several times bent over backwards to meet us on some points. We thank him for that.
We can only hope that the Bill will prevent further danger from tips. Let no one put too much faith in legislation.

It is on personalities that the responsibility will always lie, and on the vigilant determination of those in charge in the coal and other industries to have the vision, initiative and proper training to avoid disaster.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Select Committee to have power to appoint persons with technical knowledge either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the Committee's order of reference.—[Mr. Concannon.]

M1 MOTORWAY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Concannon.]

12.53 a.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the question of the growing dangers of the M1 motorway. Like many other hon. Members, I use it on my travels to and from my constituency. It was the first of this country's motorways; it is the longest; it is the best known; and in my view, because of the density of traffic using it, particularly at weekends, it is now the most dangerous. In the 10 months or so for which I have been using it consistently I have grown very apprehensive about my journeys on it because of the many horrific accidents I have seen. Every weekend when I go on it with my wife and children I feel that I am taking their lives in my hands. In many respects it might almost be more safe to fly the Atlantic each weekend.
I am not surprised at the considerable number of people, admittedly a minority, who are no longer using the M1. They are taking the old alternative routes because they are worried by what they see, particularly at weekends. I would not be caught near it when the weather conditions are adverse. One takes a different route then, although one can be caught out when fog comes down unexpectedly.
These may sound alarmist statements but I am sure that anyone who travels on


the motorway will bear them out. It is my submission that the time has come when the Ministry of Transport should make the M1 much safer and take into account the substantial growth in traffic which we know we shall have in the next few years and which will contribute a great deal to further dangers on it. One realises now that the M1 was badly designed and executed at the start and it should be a lesson to us in the way we build our motorways in future.
The basic safety factors are unaccountably missing from the M1. If they could be implemented. I submit that there would be a sensational drop in the number of accidents. There is much that can be done The recent sad experience of multiple crashes in fog shows how urgent the work is. The Minister of Transport referred to "lunatic drivers" and I support that statement entirely. But, in addition, we have a combination of circumstances which militate against safety on a motorway. I suggest three urgent actions are needed.
The first is to do with crash barriers. There should be crash barriers along the whole range of our motorways and on all future motorways. At the moment, from London as far as the M45, where the M1 turns off to Coventry and Birmingham—an area used by many of my constituents and which I use constantly—there is a crash barrier for under one-third of the way.
There is no rhyme or reason for its being placed where it is. It is surely a matter of chance, if one is unfortunate enough to have a burst tyre or to lose control, where one crosses over the centre and collides with oncoming traffic. I am told that it would cost £8 million to put a crash barrier along all our motorways and it is really on the question of expense that the Ministry will not do it, since only 5 or 6 per cent. of the accidents on motorways are caused by what are known technically as "cross-overs".
But when one thinks of the misery and tragedy it involves, surely life is worth more and the safety of the individual road user should be paramount. The series of multiple crashes caused by these cross-overs would not take place if we had crash barriers. It is true that if one is very lucky in going across and the traffic is light, one can get away with

a bad fright or a bad shaking, but with the increasing density of traffic more and more the chances are that there will be a horrific collision with cars travelling at speed in the opposite direction. Too often one sees these tragedies and the dead and dying lying on the motorway.
Crash barriers may cause more accidents—I grant that—but they will be less serious and will cause a lesser number of fatalities. With the number of improved designs coming about, it is up to the Ministry to try to settle on one and to implement it. I believe that the motoring organisations are much in favour of these procedures being taken. I know that the R.A.C. is, for it has told me so. It sent me an interesting item from a book published in the United States, called "Center Barriers Save Lives". The book was published by the Bureau of Public Information of the New Jersey Department of Transportation. It states:
With traffic volume five times the national average, New Jersey has succeeded in reducing its fatality rate on State highways from 5·3 deaths for every 100 million miles of travel in 1954 to 3·8 deaths in 1966. State officials feel that the use of median dividers, or center barriers, is vital to the success of any safety program on heavily travelled highways which are limited in width.
This is evidence of their effectiveness in another country.
Allied to the need for crash barriers is the question of warning lights. The present warning lights system on the M1 and the other motorways is ineffectual, confusing and largely ignored. It is often ignored because on many occasions the lights are left on accidentally, so that drivers assume that there is no trouble ahead and just charge on. The closest consultation should take place between the authorities responsible for the M1 and the weather forecasting authorities, so that the lights can be switched on immediately there is an adverse change in conditions.
During the recent pile-up many warning lights were not put on. It is ludicrous that the police should be so busy that they have to spend their time rushing up and down the motorway trying to put on all the warning lights. I believe that it takes about 4½ hours to get all the lights functioning on the motorway. We need an overhead gantry system of the kind used in other countries, especially the United


States. This should be electronically controlled. There should be large, bold red letters on the warning signs, giving the speeds required, together with some indication of the reason for the warning—either an accident or adverse weather conditions. Once the warning signs have flashed the speed required that speed must be rigorously enforced.
I should have thought that in due course we would arrive at the situation which already exists in California, where large areas of the motorways are under the constant surveillance of remote control teams, who watch the situation on television, and who, by the flick of a switch, can bring the emergency procedure into operation immediately. This situation will surely come about in this country one day, and I hope that the Ministry—which I realise is hard up—will at least give consideration to it. I know the Ministry says that it will do something about the lights in the 1970s, but in the light of the experience we have had only 12 days ago it is time for the Ministry to take immediate action on the question of warning lights.
Allied to the question of crash barriers and warning lights is the need for better enforcement of the law and more police patrols. A high-ranking police officer told me that every section of the motorway is thoroughly policed. There is no doubt that the men concerned do an excellent job—and it can be a most nerve-racking and unpleasant one. As one who frequently uses the motorway I can give a typical example. Last weekend I travelled from London on the motorway on Friday afternoon and travelled back on Sunday afternoon, and during my journey, over about 200 miles of motorway, I saw just one police car.
It is something of a bad joke among many travellers on the M1 that the only time they see a police car is when it is racing to an accident. Probably the police are undermanned and need more help in staffing the motorways. I appreciate that the hon. Member's Department is not responsible for the police, but we know that there is co-operation and liaison between Government Departments and I urge him to have consultations with the Home Office on this matter, because there is a need for the closest co-operation between the two Ministries.
There is also the question—even when we have the extra police patrols—of proper supervision and the need to enforce the regulations. I think that the 70 m.p.h. limit should stay. There are too many examples of dangerous and careless driving on the M1 for it to be abandoned. We should consider the question of further penalties for those who infringe the law when driving on the M1. Anyone who has driven at any time on the M1 has seen flagrant examples of bad driving. There is the maniac driver who roars up behind another car at 80 or 90 m.p.h. and remains about 3 in, from its back bumper, flashes his headlights for it to get out of the way, often panicking the driver of the leading car so that there is the potentiality of a crash.
There is the driver who gets in the centre lane, where one is supposed to drive most of the time, but who drives at 40 miles per hour, and in frustration people break the Highway Code by going out into the fast lane and keeping there. There are the drivers who meander from lane to lane; there are those, and these are notorious, who pull out of their lane without giving any indication that they are about to do so, and those who put on their indicators and pull out at the same time.
There are those very interesting and disturbing psychological cases, the drivers with the death wish who career along at 60–70 miles per hour when visibility is down to a few yards. These surely are the lemmings of the internal combustion age.
I should have thought that the lesson we must have learned from the M1 is that our motorways must be better planned, and better constructed. We must have crash barriers down the centre, and it is much cheaper to do it at the outset, than to have to do it in the long run. Whatever the Parliamentary Secretary may say, I can assure him that that they will eventually come and we shall see the day, perhaps in 10 years' time, when the crash barrier is along the whole length of a motorway. If it is to take place then, why not do it now?
There should be a much wider gap between the carriageways and a wider section between each lane. At the


moment, three large vehicles abreast doing 50 miles an hour are potentially dangerous. One of the suggestions made for improving motorways is that there should be a far bigger gap between the two carriageways, to enable any car that spins off to avoid colliding with vehicles travelling in the opposite direction. The big mistake we made as a Parliament when we initiated the motorways was to make some sections with two lanes instead of three lanes. Already this has proved to be not only confusing, but irritating and perilous in overcrowded circumstances.
I deprecate the special effects that we get on certain sections of the M1 where it says that tyre control noise tests are going on. It is no help at all when one has passed, as I have done, a particularly bloody accident suddenly to hear a hissing and shrieking from one's tyres.
I do not approach this in any partisan or political sense. We are all road users, all interested in safety, we all want to save lives. What I submit is that we need a commonsense approach, and the Ministry has a duty to try to make the M1 become the safest road in the country and the best-liked. While I am a Member of Parliament I shall constantly strive to achieve this and I hope that I shall carry the Parliamentary Secretary with me.

1.8 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): This debate is primarily concerned with the general issue of accidents on the M1 motorway, but as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Dudley Smith) said, the problem has received extensive publicity lately as a result of the tragic accidents which took place on the morning of 9th January. I am sure the whole House will have been shocked to learn of yet another series of multiple accidents, and of the injury and damage which was caused. We are all grateful to the hon. Member for taking an early opportunity to raise this problem in the House.
While my right hon. Friend is anything but complacent about motorway accidents, I think it is important that we should get this problem in perspec-

tive. In 1967 there were 1,350 accidents involving personal injury on the whole motorway network of the country. This represents 0.49 per cent. of all road accidents. These accidents led to 2,447 people being killed or injured, which is about two-thirds of 1 per cent of the national total. It is true that injury accidents on motorways tend to be more serious than accidents in general and for more spectacular as a general rule, and 119 people were killed in these accidents. But this figure, tragic as it is, still amounts to no more than 1·6 per cent. of all road deaths. Motorway accidents are therefore only a tiny proportion of all road accidents, and these roads are still by far the safest we have.
But accidents like those which happened on 9th January show just how serious a situation can arise if drivers do not take account of prevailing conditions. Perhaps I can briefly comment on some of the complaints and accusations which have been made by or on behalf of motorists as a result of this spate of accidents.
There have been complaints from motorists that the emergency warning lights were not operating at the time of the accidents. The responsibility for turning these lights on rests with the police. I am informed by the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire that over 2½ hours before the first accident happened all warning lights were operating on the approach roads although not on the motorway itself. This was not accidental, it was intentional. The practice of the Hertfordshire police is to use the lights to warn drivers when they are entering an area of fog. But when the drivers are already in thick fog the lights along the roads affected are reserved to give an indication of a further hazard ahead such as an accident, an obstruction or the closing of a road. Later, the police turned the lights on at the scene of each accident wherever they could reach them, and they also used portable accident warning signs, flashing lights and warning flares. I am satisfied that the police did everything that could have been expected of them in what was clearly a very dangerous situation.
Here I wish to quote a few words from the report of a traffic patrol sergeant. This


clearly gives an indication of the conditions on the motorway during this series of accidents.
… I arrived a the M1/M10 junction. There was thick fog at this location. I parked the accident tender on the hard shoulder of the south-bound carriageway just north of the junction, with the blue light and two-tone horns switched on. I set out four police Accident signs, one behind the other, for a distance of about 500 to 600 yards, interspaced with red beacons and amber flashing lights. This made no appreciable difference to the speed of the traffic which was up to about 60 miles per hour in some cases. A senior fire brigade officer stopped and helped me for a couple of minutes, as I coned across the M10 motorway in a gradual diagonal over about 150 yards. I placed the double blue spinners in the centre of the cones. Several lorries crashed through the cones and continued down the M10 at fast speed. It was a hopeless situation and very frightening.
These are the words of an experienced traffic patrol sergeant. For anyone to suggest that in continuous fog he needs a warning light to remind him to reduce his speed to take account of the conditions in which he is driving is an obvious nonsense.
It has also been suggested that there was ice on the motorway. We have made inquiries of the county council and we understand that salting began at 3.0 a.m. on the morning of the 9th, and was completed by 6.30 a.m. The police have confirmed that there was no ice on the road at the time of the accidents.
All the evidence which we have been able to collect about these accidents points to the same conclusion: they were due to drivers driving too fast for the prevailing conditions, in such a way that they were quite unable to pull up when an obstruction came within the limits of their very restricted visability. When I hear of motorists deliberately crossing into the opposing carriageway to avoid an obstruction, or—as has also happened—removing the police bollards used to close a road in an emergency, or driving at speeds of 60 m.p.h. in thick fog, as is shown by the report of the traffic patrol sergeant, I begin to wonder whether we are not dealing with drivers who have so little regard either for other people's safety or their own, that they have no right to be allowed to drive on our roads.
Turning now from the recent accidents, I should like to answer some of

the hon. Member's points about motorway safety in general. First, I will deal with the question of crash barriers.
The first point related to crash barriers, I should like to set the record straight on this. Through the Road Research Laboratory, we have done and continue to do a great deal of work both on the design of barriers and on their effectiveness as a road safety measure. In our view, it is by no means clear yet that safety fences on central reservations save lives overall, though this may change as traffic volumes increase. We also concluded that the installation of safety fences on the whole motorway network would not give good value in terms of casualties saved by comparison with other projects. Some of the other projects may be less spectacular—for example, improved street lighting, junction improvements in urban streets, and so on—but we have carefully calculated that they will save more lives and injuries.
It does not help to say, as some people have said, that with lives at stake, cost should not be a consideration. The fact is that there will never be enough money to do all that one would like to save accidents: we must choose between one measure and another.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that future motorways will not be built with crash barriers?

Mr. Brown: No. I am saying that the development of future motorways will be done in the light of the experience we gain from existing motorways.
This is not to say that we have ruled out the use of crash barriers altogether. We are certainly prepared to put them where particular road conditions make them desirable, or where traffic volumes are very high. Indeed, we agreed in December to install a barrier on the M1 between Hemel Hempstead and the M10 junction, although it is perhaps interesting that this would not have prevented any of the accidents on 9th January. It would of course have prevented the incredible folly of people driving deliberately across the central reservation into the fast lane of the opposite carriageway, but I cannot believe that anyone is seriously suggesting that crash barriers


should be installed to deal with this kind of lunacy.
The hon. Gentleman then referred to speed limits, and I was glad to hear that he agrees that the 70 m.p.h. limit should remain. I well remember the protests from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite when my right hon. Friend first proposed it, and we heard similar prattle from them when the breathalyser test was introduced. More speed limits, more rigidly enforced, have also been suggested. The present warning lights indicate an advisory speed limit of 30 m.p.h., but I do not think a great deal more can be done to prevent fog accidents by the use of mandatory speed limits.
Mandatory speed limits have to be enforced if they are to be effective, and one simply cannot ask the police to chase drivers at speed down a fog-bound motorway to insist that they keep to the speed limit. That would be dangerous for the police and for other road users.
The hon. Gentleman made reference to motorway signals. The existing warning signals consist of vertical pairs of amber lights at intervals of about a mile. They are switched on and off by the police either by a switch on the signal post or by a radio transmitter in the patrol car. These signals are being replaced by new systems connected to the nearest police control centre. In the new system the signal has two sets of vertical flashing amber lights and will show an advisory speed limit or the lane that drivers should take to avoid an obstruction. Because of the different conditions, these signals on urban motorways also show flashing red signals to stop traffic completely.
Priority for the new system must be given to urban motorways without hard shoulders, and the programme is being related to the traffic needs of particular areas. The first permanent remote controlled system was brought into use on the Severn Bridge section of the M4 in June, 1968, and the second permanent system is now being installed on the M4 between Chiswick and Langley. This should be ready for use in March this year.
The whole motorway network should be equipped with the new system by the mid-1970s. We are pressing forward

with this programme as fast as technical and other resources allow. The new system will be much more sophisticated than the present one, and as advanced as any in the world. Clearly, in conditions which require it, motorists will have to pay due attention to the signals, which they did not on 9th January.
Reference has been made to the matter of police patrols on motorways. All police forces have specialist traffic departments and maintain permanent traffic mobile patrols. However, Mr. Speaker, I must make it clear that the total resources available to the Police in this respect are limited, and the use of traffic patrols as between motorways and other roads, or areas where accident rates may be higher, are operational matters strictly for chief officers of police. There is no Ministerial authority to intervene in this matter.
Nevertheless, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the chief constables responsible for policing the M1 and associated motorways take the greatest possible care to ensure that these roads are given all reasonable attention by the police, having regard to their other commitments. There are standing arrangements for discussing problems and tactics, and to ensure maximum inter-force co-operation. It may interest the House to know that as a result of the effort made by the police during 1968 on the M1, M10, and M45 motorways, over 11,500 motorists were reported for traffic offences and nearly 500 were arrested for non-traffic crimes. I think those figures speak for themselves in terms of the effort being made by the police.
I should have liked to say much more. It is often said that if we had a stricter driving test which involved driving on a motorway, this type of thing would not happen. But the experience in other countries where this has been tried is that people who tend to fail the test in motorway driving in any event fail the test on normal road driving. It is not a practical proposition at the present time in this country in any event to take people long distances from a test centre to do motorway driving.
It is fair to say that accidents such as those on 9th January demonstrate very forcibly that the overwhelming problem in road safety is to inspire a greater sense


of individual responsibility and consideration for others. Clearly this was not done on 9th January.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and

the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-three minutes past One o'clock.